Category : Science and TechPublished on: December 14 2022
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Japan has launched its first-ever lunar mission, the HAKUTO-R Mission 1. It is headed by ispace, a Tokyo-based startup.
It took off on December 11 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.
The ispace mission is the first of the "Hakuto-R" program, which means "white rabbit" in Japanese.
The Japanese lunar lander (Mission 1) will touch down at the Atlas Crater, located on the southeastern edge of the Moon's Mare Frigoris (also called "Sea of Cold").
The M1 lander will deploy two robotic rovers, two-wheeled, orange-sized devices from Japan’s JAXA space agency and a four-wheeled Rover made by the UAE known as the Explorer Rashid, after the Dubai royal family patriarch.
