ispace is a Japanese lunar exploration company that aims to provide low-cost and frequent transportation services to the Moon. They specialize in designing and building lunar landers and rovers for payload delivery and data collection. ispace has partnerships with organizations like JAXA and ESA, and their customers include government space agencies, research institutions, and private companies. The company's vision is to expand human presence beyond Earth by enabling the utilization of lunar resources.
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Luxembourg used ESA funding through the LuxIMPULSE project to partially finance development of the ispace rover.
The Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site’s first-stage recovery ship is expected to be similar to iSpace’s drone ship.
The Wenchang first-stage recovery ship is expected to be similar to iSpace’s drone ship rather than the Long March 10 series booster-catching ship Linghangzhe.
iSpace completed a self-learning intelligent plug-in test for post-recovery processing of its Double Curve 3 reusable rocket.
iSpace is conducting a landing and recovery rehearsal with its recovery barge.
iSpace is testing an autonomous robot to plug a cable or fuel line after landing.
iSpace’s launch is still planned for the end of 2026.
UK Space Minister Liz Lloyd supports the agreement between ispace and the University of Leicester as a UK-Japan space science collaboration.
ispace and the University of Leicester are jointly developing a deployment mechanism to position the instrument on the lunar surface for lander-based and rover-based operations.
Under the agreement, ispace will provide payload transportation services through its Japanese entity on a future mission using its ULTRA lunar lander.
ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada leads the company.
Collaboration between ispace and the University of Leicester began with a Letter of Support in 2022 and progressed to an Initial Payload Service Agreement in 2024 before the full Payload Service Agreement.
ispace and the University of Leicester have signed a Payload Service Agreement to deliver a Raman spectrometer payload to the lunar surface on a future ispace mission.
Mission Control’s software did not ultimately reach the Moon successfully on the 2023 ispace landing mission.
TENACIOUS launched on ispace’s second mission to the lunar surface last year aboard the Resilience lander.
ispace is planning a third lunar landing attempt for 2028.
ispace’s TENACIOUS micro-rover is tightly integrated with the company’s lander architecture.
Bridgestone has signed joint development agreements with Astrobotic and ispace for lunar wheel development.
iSpace’s Hyperbola-3 is a partially reusable launch vehicle.
iSpace is preparing a Series E funding round targeting 7 billion yuan to improve JD-2 production, Hyperbola-3 launch frequency, and new Wenchang facilities.