Japanese lunar exploration company ispace has announced the date for their first attempt to land on the Moon. The landing of HAKUTO-R Mission 1 will take place on April 25, 12:40 p.m. EDT. This will be the culmination of a months long journey that began on December 12, 2022.

On April 12 the spacecraft entered into an elliptical orbit around the Moon with a periapsis of 100 km (62 miles) and an apoapsis of 2,300 km (1,430 miles). Prior to landing day, the spacecraft will perform a number of orbital control maneuvers that will put the vehicle in a circular orbit at 100 km as part of a demonstration Milestone.

On landing day the spacecraft will begin the landing procedure from this 100 km altitude orbit. The lander will perform a breaking maneuver by firing it’s main propulsion system in order to slow the craft down and out of orbit. A series of pre-set commands will help slow velocity and adjust attitude until the craft is able to make a soft landing on the lunar surface. The company is targeting Atlas Crater in the Mare Frigoris.

“To all of our supporters and everyone who has been looking forward to the day when we will land on the Moon, I am pleased to announce the scheduled landing date for Mission 1,” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder and CEO of ispace. “What we have accomplished so far is already a great achievement, and we are already applying lessons learned from this flight to our future missions. I would like to once again express my heartfelt thanks to those who have worked so hard on this mission, including the engineers who are carrying out the long-term operations since our launch back in December. The stage is set. I am looking forward to witnessing this historic day, marking the beginning of a new era of commercial lunar missions.”

The lander is carrying a payload that consists of two small rovers. The first of these is the Rashid lunar rover provided by the United Arab Emirates. The Rashid will study the properties of lunar soil, geology of the Moon, dust movement, and the surface plasma environment. Rashid is expected to last from one lunar sunrise to sunset (about 14 Earth days). The other rover is a Japanese rover called SORA-Q. It is a very small rover equipped with cameras to make surface observations.

The landing will be livestreamed from Tokyo, though ispace hasn’t released exact details on when the broadcast would begin. Alternate dates for the landing have already been selected if something were to preventing landing on the 25th. These alternate days are April 26, May 1, and May 3.

A successful landing would represent the first landing by a commercial lunar lander in history.

ispace Source NASA Source