Sitemap

Private Japanese Moon Lander Snaps 1st Photos In Deep Space

CorD Recommends

Celebration Of 115 years Of Diplomatic Relations Between Egypt and Serbia

On Thursday, November 23, the Slavija Fountain...

Serbia and Cyprus Strengthen Ties with Three New Cooperation Memorandums

In a significant diplomatic event held in...

Serbia Appoints New Ambassadors to Sweden, Venezuela, Brazil, and Libya

Serbia has announced the appointment of four...

Chinese Firms Lead as Serbia’s Top Exporters

Three Chinese companies have emerged as the...

Belgrade Hosts International Energy and Environmental Fairs

At the Belgrade Fair, the 18th International Energy Fair and the 19th International Environmental Protection Fair have been opened,...

French Week Celebrated with New Beaujolais and French Ile de France Cheeses

Another celebration of French Week, a now traditional event, was kicked off with a grand welcoming of the new...

Milan Radulović Awarded French Order of Arts and Letters

Milan Radulović, the director of the Music Youth of Novi Sad and the Novi Sad Music Festivities, has been...

Swedish High-Tech Electric Ferry Sets New Public Transport Standard

Cities worldwide view clean and efficient public transportation as a key strategy for reducing carbon emissions.  For cities with...

Celebration Of 115 years Of Diplomatic Relations Between Egypt and Serbia

On Thursday, November 23, the Slavija Fountain in Belgrade was illuminated with the colors of the Egyptian flag, in...

The Hakuto-R lander is coming online after its Dec. 11 launch. A private Japanese moon lander has opened its eyes in deep space.

The Hakuto-R lander has snapped its first photos since launching atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday morning (Dec. 11), representatives of ispace, the Tokyo-based company that operates the spacecraft, announced early Tuesday morning (Dec. 13).

“While initial checkout operations continue in ispace’s Mission Control Center (MCC), we have also received the first images taken by our lander-mounted camera! This is an image of the Earth about 19 hours after separation from the launch vehicle,” ispace said via Twitter.

“What looks like a crescent moon here is actually the Earth. In the lower right, you can see a plate showing our Hakuto-R corporate partners (as of March 2022),” the company added in another tweet.

If all goes according to plan, Hakuto-R will arrive at the moon in April, pulling off the first-ever soft lunar touchdown for a Japanese spacecraft. The lander will then deploy a small rover called Rashid for the United Arab Emirates’ space agency.

But ispace isn’t looking that far ahead yet. This is a test flight, the first-ever mission for ispace, and the company is taking things slowly. The mission team is checking off boxes one by one — and Hakuto-R is hitting its marks so far.

To date, the team has established communications with the lander and gotten it into a stable orientation with a consistent power supply. Team members also have “confirmation that there were no deficiencies in the lander’s core systems,” ispace wrote in an update on Monday (Dec. 12).

Hakuto-R’s journey will lay the foundation for many more missions to come, if all goes according to ispace’s plan. The company intends to launch its second mission to the lunar surface in 2024 and its third — a flight for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program — a year later.

The Hakuto-R moon lander, which is operated by Tokyo-based company ispace, snapped this photo of Earth about 19 hours after separating from its SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft launched on Dec. 11, 2022. (Image credit: ispace via Twitter)

After that, ispace is targeting two moon missions a year, company founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada told Space.com recently.

“Our vision is to establish an economically viable, sustainable ecosystem in cislunar [space],” Hakamada said.

Hakuto-R didn’t ride to space alone on Sunday. The Falcon 9 also lofted Lunar Flashlight, a briefcase-sized NASA spacecraft that will hunt for water ice from orbit around the moon.

Source: space.com

Related Articles

Ambassador Imamura Highlights Increasing Japanese Investment in Serbia and Regional Cooperation Initiatives

In recent years, there has been a notable increase in Japanese companies entering the Serbian market, stated Ambassador Akiro Imamura of Japan in Belgrade.  Ambassador...

Japan Gifts Medical Equipment to Negotin in Health Sector Boost

The Japanese government will donate medical equipment worth €59,024 to the Negotin Health Centre in a bid to support the enhancement of the healthcare...

Russia Excluded from UN Human Rights Council Membership

The United Nations General Assembly, in its recent session, did not elect Russia to the Human Rights Council for the 2024-2026 term, as confirmed...

Japan’s Population of Those 100 Years of Age Hits Record 92,139

The number of individuals in Japan who have reached 100 years of age has climbed to a record 92,139, with women making up 88.5%...

Japan Supports Serbia’s EU Path, Pledges Development Aid

Through the Western Balkans Cooperation Initiative, Japan is backing Serbia's EU accession process and aims to provide support for stable development and the promotion...

Champagne Sales Flourish, but Climate Change Threatens Its Survival

Champagne has long been associated with luxury living, but rising temperatures in Europe and increasingly unstable weather are raising concerns that the French Champagne...

H.E. Akira Imamura, new Ambassador of Japan to Serbia 

Akira Imamura joined the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1984. Among his foreign postings, he has served in Moscow three times, but also...

Seven Newly Appointed Ambassadors Present Letters Of Credence

The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, received letters of credence from the newly appointed ambassadors of Palestine, Congo, Japan, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the...