The mission remains more discreet than many american adventures, and yet the private company iSpace has just achieved a small feat, by sending its small Hakuto-R lander to orbit the Moon. He still has a month to maneuver before attempting to land there, with the little Rashid rover.
And we know it won’t be a walk in the park…
After 100 days, the lunar orbit
Last December, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle sent the Hakuto-R mission into a special transfer orbit, en route to the Moon. Liftoff had not received as much attention as it deserved, for a very simple reason: it took place on the same day as the return of the large Orion capsule, which successfully completed Artemis I. Yet Hakuto-R n is not an insignificant mission. First, it’s a private adventure, even if the iSpace company is helped by the Japanese government. Then, it was assembled and tested in Europe, and more precisely in Germany by ArianeGroup, in an astonishing contract as a service provider.
With a ton on the scale and 2.3 meters high, it’s not such a small vehicle either… Hakuto-R, however, took a long time to become a reality, because this idea was born within the framework of the participation of the Japanese team at the Google Lunar X-Prize, between 2007 and 2018. Like the Israeli Beresheet lander (which crashed on the Moon in 2019), this is therefore a demonstration mission, which serves a long-term commercial objective: iSpace wants to become a “taxi to the Moon”. Big positive point since today, it is in orbit!
Savings, but not just anyhow
But then, what has the Hakuto-R lander been doing for three months? It turns, in an enormous ellipse. As with the South Korean Danuri probe, the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket propelled Hakuto-R into an orbit to a point very far from Earth, just over 1.5 million kilometers. This allows it, at the cost of an extended mission duration, to approach the Moon with a much lower speed than a “usual” transfer, which requires braking with more energy to enter orbit. It is therefore a question of exchanging more time spent in space for substantial fuel savings… Useful for a vehicle that wants to prove its resistance and keep a maximum margin for lunar operations! It’s this March 21, at 100e day of the mission, that iSpace produced “Sequence #7” of Hakuto-R’s adventure. The thrusters were fired for a record duration, and the vehicle is now in lunar orbit.
The ground test
Obviously, even if it is a splendid success for a lander, the most difficult remains to be done: landing on the Moon! The company is targeting the Lacus Somniorum area, a flat area which does not appear to have too much relief, nor too many craters, nor huge blocks… But you can never be safe. Especially since the latest experiments, if we except the insolent Chinese successes (Chang’E 3, 4 and 5 in a decade), have shown that controlling a descent on the surface is not easy. In fact, total autonomy of the controls is required (too little time for manual corrections) for braking and orientation according to the ground, including for the selection of the landing zone. A single badly adjusted sensor, as for the Indian lander Vikram, and it’s a disaster. With several successive small maneuvers, iSpace hopes to be able to lower its orbit and aim for a landing by the end of April.
The main passenger of Hakuto-R is a 10 kg and 50 cm long rover, belonging to the United Arab Emirates. Called Rashid, the latter has four wheels and two solar panels, to hope to roll for several days while observing the surface closely. We find for his vision a French participation, CASPEX cameras (CNES) adapted to the Moon. But to be able to film, you will first have to ask yourself…
Source : space
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