The Japanese start-up Ispace exploits the Apollo-era expertise to build lunar satellites for NASA

The Japanese startup, ispace, which has great ambitions to create a lunar base, says that it associates with three other aerospace companies to conduct regular missions on the moon's surface for NASA. The four companies, including one with experience navigating the Apollo missions on the Moon, will bring their personal area of ​​expertise to design, build and launch a spacecraft that can land on the lunar ground.

The four companies have joined together to participate in the Commercial Lunar Payload Payload Services Program, or CLPS. It is the space agency's initiative to send on the Moon small robotic lunar earth stations made by private companies. This is the first program in a series of NASA programs to stimulate the creation of lunar landers while the space agency focuses on returning to the moon. In April, NASA called on commercial space segment companies interested in sending landing gear designs that they could build and operate for the CLPS. These vehicles must be capable of weighing a payload of at least 10 kilograms on the moon.

The bidding period ended yesterday, October 9, and NASA plans to select a series of "finalists" for the program by the end of the year. This list of companies will then be able to compete with various contracts with NASA. For example, the space agency will pay these companies a seat on their landing gear to transport certain scientific instruments to the moon. NASA plans to spend up to $ 2.6 billion on these contracts over the next 10 years. Thus, whoever is selected for the program will have the opportunity to compete for pieces of that money.

ispace threw its hat on the ring because the company is actively working on creating hardware capable of exploring the lunar surface. In fact, ispace has been watching the moon for a while, long before NASA decides to focus on it again. The company oversaw a finalist team in the Google Lunar X Prize contest, an international competition to send the first private spacecraft to the moon. The ispace team, Hakuto, had designed a rover capable of moving on the lunar surface. The competition ended without a winner, but ispace continues to progress. The company recently announced that it has booked two flights on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets to send several spacecraft to the moon by 2020.

Although ispace is working to create its own lunar vehicles itself, the company has decided to partner with other aerospace organizations to create the best landing gear for NASA's CLPS program. ispace will be responsible for the overall design of the vehicle, which the team has named Artemis-7 in honor of the Greek goddess of the moon. But the other three companies will provide essential services to the lander.

Image: Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.

The first major partner is an engineering company called Draper. The company focuses on many technological areas, but it also has a rich legacy of spaceflight. Draper, originally from the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, designed the systems needed to guide and navigate spacecraft on Apollo missions on the Moon. "We were NASA's first-ever contract for Apollo missions," said Alan Campbell, space systems engineer at Draper. The edge. And the company has provided numerous navigation systems for NASA's largest manned space flight vehicles, such as the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.

Drawing on this expertise, Draper plans to provide the Artemis-7 Landing Gear guidance and navigation systems, which will help the vehicle move to the right place on the Moon and land on the surface. Draper will also manage and serve as prime contractor for the entire team of four companies. In this way, ispace can be involved, since NASA has stipulated that the main contractor must be based in the United States.

To build these vehicles, companies turn to General Atomics, a defense subcontractor specializing in nuclear reactor manufacturing and drone technology. In addition, General Atomics recently began manufacturing satellites and Campbell said the company had all the tools and facilities needed to create and test the LG. "We make hardware and software, but we're not really a production company," he says. "We are a non-profit research and development laboratory. It's not really in our business plan to make that. "

And finally, the fourth partner is an aerospace company called Spaceflight Industries, a newcomer to the sector as ispace. However, Spaceflight has recently become a business of choice for small satellite operators seeking to move in space. The company is helping rocket brokers find space on the vehicles that are scheduled to be launched. In this way, small satellite manufacturers can use their rocket launchers on rockets that launch much larger satellites into orbit. Spaceflight will do the same for the Artemis-7 lander, finding the available rockets on which the spacecraft can be launched.

This four-way partnership does not include any financial exchange. Companies say they will do their own work and if they are selected for the program, they will share the contracts that will be awarded to them. However, Campbell says the partnership will make building Artemis-7 more affordable, as businesses will not have to start from scratch for key components. ispace already has a design on which it works, while Draper just needs to tweak his navigation software for this vehicle. "We just have to adapt it to the specific mission, which is a lot cheaper than rebuilding it from scratch," he said.

Of course, this partnership relies on NASA choosing the team to participate in the CLPS program. There are only a few months left in 2018, so the four companies should know about it soon. However, if they are not chosen, they are always ready to collaborate. "If we are not rewarded, we will continue to work with ispace as part of their trade missions," Campbell said. "And we are always looking to work with NASA and our trading partners."