SpaceX postpones the launch of the Japanese lunar lander again
SpaceX just backed out of launching a Japanese lunar lander.
The Hakuto-R lander, built by the Tokyo-based company ispace, and NASA’s Lunar Flashlight cube sat were scheduled to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday (December 1) at 3:37 a.m. EST (0837 GMT). But that’s no longer the plan.
“After further launch vehicle inspections and data review, we are withdrawing from tomorrow’s launch of @ispace_inc’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1; a new target launch date will be shared once confirmed,” SpaceX announced via Twitter (opens in new tab) on Wednesday evening.
Related: Japanese ispace lander will bring UAE lunar rover to lunar surface in 2022
It was the second such delay for the mission: It was originally planned to launch early Wednesday (Nov. 30), but SpaceX pushed things back a day “to allow additional pre-flight check-outs.”
The Falcon 9 slated to launch Mission 1 from ispace is a veteran of four previous flights. The first stage previously helped launch the SES-22 communications satellite last June and three batches of SpaceX’s Starlink Internet satellites, company representatives wrote in a statement. description of the upcoming lunar mission (opens in new tab).
Mission 1 is a test flight for ispace, which aims to see how Hakuto-R performs in deep space and on the lunar surface.
After launch, the lander will embark on a journey of approximately four months to the moon. If Hakuto-R makes its landing on Earth’s nearest neighbor, it will make history; to date, only the space agencies of the United States, China, and the Soviet Union have achieved soft landings on the lunar surface.
A successful landing will also enable the United Arab Emirates to make history of its own; the country’s first lunar rover, called a 22-pound (10-kilogram) robot Rashidwill deploy from Hakuto-R and study its environment for about 14 Earth days, if all goes according to plan.
NASA also has a stake in the upcoming flight. The agency’s briefcase-sized Lunar Flashlight is designed to hunt for water ice near the moon’s south pole, where NASA plans to build a lunar base via its Artemis program.
The cubesat will do its job from orbit around the moon, which it will reach after a journey of about three months through deep space.
Mike Wall is the author of “Outside (opens in new tab)(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
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