The Japanese space company ispace has invested more than $40 million in its new US subsidiary, seeking to take advantage of NASA and the Pentagon's growing investment in technologies for the moon.
The level of investment is a sign of ispace's "strong commitment to the US market," CEO Takeshi Hakamada said in a statement.
“We hope this number continues to grow as part of our strategic commitment to contribute to government missions and the creation of a cislunar ecosystem from the United States,” he added.
The US subsidiary, called ispace technologies US, employs more than eighty people in Denver, Colorado. Ronald J. Garan, a former NASA astronaut and senior vice president of World View, was named CEO of the US company in June.
ispace also unveiled a new lander, called Apex 1.0, which will fly in place of a previous iteration, the Series 2. Apex 1.0 is designed for short-path flights to the moon and will be capable of transporting up to 300 kilograms to the lunar surface . This is a 10-fold increase in capacity compared to ispace's first lander, the Series 1.
Apex 1.0 will launch on ispace's third mission, which will be carried out in partnership with Draper Laboratory to deliver payloads to the far side of the moon for NASA. Draper and ispace, along with General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems and Systima Technologies, a division of Karman Space & Defense, were awarded the $73 million contract last summer. The mission date was pushed back from 2025 to 2026 in part due to the transition of the Series 2 lander design to Apex 1.0, ispace said.
Team Draper, as the consortium is called, is one of several that have won contracts under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic also won awards under that program and are competing to be the first to land a commercial lander on the moon.
"The updated schedule allows the Draper and US ispace team to include sensitive payloads leveraging the enhanced capabilities of Apex 1.0 for Mission 3, which targets a technically challenging landing site on the far side of the Moon," the company explained in a statement. .
The new lander will have more than ten times the capacity of ispace's first lander, Series 1, which suffered a devastating impact on the surface lunar in April.
