Mark Megahan
Japan is racing NASA to the moon but they had a major setback early Wednesday morning. SpaceX was all set to launch the privately funded mission, intended to deliver the HAKUTO-R Mission 1 into a lunar trajectory on its way to the surface of our neighboring satellite.
Liftoff for moon mission delayed
It’s just one of those things that happens in the moon launch game. All revved up with no place to go. The Falcon 9 is generally a “reliable” private sector booster rocket.
They had one all gassed up an ready to go at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Tuesday night with liftoff scheduled for for 3:39 AM EST, Wednesday. They had to pull the plug.
This was the second disappointment in two days for the project teams. It was originally scheduled for launch on Tuesday but SpaceX wasn’t comfortable with the way preflight checkouts were going.
As upsetting as delay is to the scientists, safety always comes first, even with unmanned missions. A malfunctioning booster rocket could make it off the pad and headed for the moon just fine, then unexpectedly come back down anywhere, explosively.
By late Wednesday night, the engineers had to announce the bad news that the moon mission was scrubbed.
“After further inspections of the launch vehicle and data review, SpaceX is standing down from Falcon 9’s launch of ispace’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1 from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.” These things happen. “A new target launch date will be shared once confirmed.”
More than a decade in the making
According to ispace, the Japanese company sponsoring the mission, it is their submission for the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition. They want the prize for “first private lunar exploration mission.”
HAKUTO means “white rabbit” in Japanese. That’s not to be confused with the “jade rabbit” rover the Chinese already have hopping around the surface of the moon.
They already scored in 2015 with the first successful rover demonstration. Theirs is a lot more advanced than the golf cart for astronauts NASA sent to the moon in the 1970’s. The $500,000 they banked in prize money went a long way toward the current design.
Two years later, they had their rover ready to blast off and at the launch site. “However, the primary spacecraft did not fulfill its part of the mission, therefore the joint ride to the moon was canceled.”
This time around, they’re hoping to complete a whopping 10 goals once they land on the moon. Getting there are half the objectives and they’re stuck on number two. They checked off “completion of launch preparations.” Next and holding is “completion of launch deployment.” After that, things get hairy.
“Establishment of a Steady Operation State; Completion of First Orbital Control Maneuver; Completion of stable deep-state flight operations for one month; Completion of all deep space orbital control maneuvers before LOI; Reaching the lunar gravitational field/lunar orbit; Completion of all orbit control maneuvers in lunar orbit; Completion of the lunar landing; Establishment of a steady system state after the lunar landing.” Followed by the crucial ultimate step, a trip back to the bank to deposit a whole lot of prize money.
