Ispace: Japan-US Artemis Agreement Will Benefit The Country

NASA and Japan representatives when signing the Artemis Agreement (photo: dock. NASA)

JAKARTA ispace, a space robot development company, supports Japan's participation in the Artemis Agreement. According to ispace, the agreement between Japan and the US for the Artemis mission will benefit the country. The chief executive of the Takeshi Hakamada ispace says that Japan's joining the Artemis mission will explore a new very potential market, particularly for ispace. This agreement will likely require Japanese-made landers. Based on the agreement agreed by Japan and the US, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will provide the rover robot for the Artemis mission in the early 2030s. There is a possibility that JAXA will need the services of companies like ispace. "We believe that the Japanese-US agreement regarding the Artemis program, created in April of this year, creates a business environment that is quite positive for us to cooperate and contribute to the government," Takeshi said, quoted from Spacenews. Takeshi believes that NASA, which leads the Artemis mission, will require a small lunar lander robot such as the one where the space is developing today. Therefore, Takeshi strongly supports the agreement between Japan and the US for the Artemis mission. A number of scientific exploration missions and demonstrations of technology using small landers will most likely be needed, Takeshi said. After the manned mission begins, additional missions using a small landing plane will also be needed.

Currently, ispace is developing three Mission 2 (M2) landers to collect regolit samples on the Moon. The plan, this lander will launch with SpaceX's Falcon 9. In addition, the US branch ispace is making APEX 1.0. Under the contract of space company Draper, APEX 1.0 lander will launch on NASA's Commercial Moon Payload Service (CLPS) mission by 2026. This lander will be able to transport 300 kilograms of payloads, but NASA will only send 95 kilograms of payload.