Japanese company attempts historic lunar landing on Tuesday

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Only the United States, Russia and China have managed to put a robot on the surface of the Moon. Japan can join these countries today. Japanese company tries to make a historic lunar landing ispace/Disclosure The company ispace will try to make a historic landing on the Moon this Tuesday (25). If all goes well, it will be the first private company to put a lander on the Moon, according to Agence France Presse. The Hakuto-R Mission 1 module will begin the descent towards Earth’s natural satellite around 12:40 pm (Brasília time). It will slow its orbit about 100 kilometers above the Moon and adjust its speed and altitude for a “soft landing” almost an hour later. Success is not guaranteed. In April 2019, the Israeli company SpaceIL observed the fall of its module on the surface of the Moon. ispace has announced three alternative landing sites and, depending on conditions, may also postpone the landing date to April 26, May 1 or May 3. “The stage is set. I look forward to witnessing this historic day, which marks the beginning of a new era in commercial lunar missions,” said Takeshi Hakamada, founder and chief executive of the company. The module, just three meters high and weighing 340 kilograms, has been in lunar orbit since last month. It was launched in December from Earth by one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets. To date, only the United States, Russia and China have managed to place a robot on the surface of the Moon, in all cases in programs developed by the government. The model carries several lunar rovers, including an eight-centimeter Japanese miniature model. The project was one of five finalists in Google’s Lunar X competition to land a rover on the Moon by 2018, a deadline that expired without a winner. With just 200 employees, ispace says it “wants to extend the sphere of human life into space and create a sustainable world by providing high-frequency, low-cost transport services to the Moon.” Its founder claims that the mission lays “the foundation for unlocking the potential of the Moon and transforming it into a robust and vibrant economic system”. The company believes that the Moon can receive a population of 1,000 people in 2040, in addition to 10,000 visitors a year. ALSO READ: Starship, SpaceX’s ship, explodes after launch; VIDEO Experiment makes video calls between parrots; watch ‘Deepfake live’ conversations: technology portrayed in ‘Travessia’ exists, can be used to apply scams and is expensive; VIDEO

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