Japanese are known for their highly ambitious nature. They are making significant growth in the field of technology, opening new start-ups and providing their services across the world. But, recent times have also witnessed their great enthusiasm in the space industry. For example, Astroscale, a Japanese start-up has aimed to clean out the space debris. Similarly, a Japanese start-up, ispace has shown keen interest in developing robotic spacecraft technologies. Robotic spacecraft is best defined as a spacecraft without a crew. The mission is under the surveillance of telerobotic control. Takeshi Hakamada, an aerospace engineer founded the company in 2013. Currently, the headquarters of the company is based in Tokyo, Japan.
The company has big dreams which might seem to be slipping off at times. The high expenditure is a very big factor that the company is still trying to overcome.
Takeshi Hakamada
Since his childhood, Takeshi was very much into learning about space. He watched all the Star Wars movies as well. But, the real thrill for making a big contribution to space passed his mind when a pilot form SpaceShipOne visited his university. He received inspiration and determination to build his career in the space industry.
Takeshi went to Nagoya University and acquired his bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering. He graduated in the year 2004 and went to Georgia Institute of Technology to complete his master’s in the same. While pursuing his master’s, Takeshi worked at the Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory as an Assistant.
In 2006, Takeshi joined Lowendal Group as a Consultant and got promoted to Project Leader in 2009. He worked for the company for more than six years. In 2010, he became the CEO of the company, White Label Space Japan, LLC. After three years, he founded his start-up in the space industry.
The Founding Story
ispace is a private space company that has now become an independent entity. White Label Space, a European organisation where Takeshi serves as the CEO is the predecessor of ispace. White Label Space was founded in 2008 with the purpose to compete in the Google Lunar X Prize. The company comprised of space engineers from across the world.
For the Google Lunar X Prize, mainly two teams were working among themselves in WLS. The European team was building the lunar lander while the Japanese team was developing a rover. The winning prize was $20 million and the winning team was given a chance to land a spacecraft on the Moon’s surface.
In 2010, Takeshi established White Label Space Japan to manage both technical and commercial aspects of the company in Japan. While the team was working for GLXP, the Europeans stepped out of it. So, Takeshi decided to continue the work and the entire project since then is continued by the Japanese members. After the Europeans sabotaged in 2013, Takeshi changed the company’s name to ispace and the team name for GLXP became “Hakuto”. Though the mission wasn’t successful, the project continues under the name of ispace.
The Journey
ispace is a team of experienced space engineers since they developed a lunar rover for the GLXP. From 2017, they started the development of lunar lander as well. In 2018, the company signed an agreement with Draper for the designing purpose of the team. This has brought a lot of changes in ispace which led to restructuring their lunar program and also renaming it as Hakuto-R.
After the partnership with Draper, the orbit mission of 2020 for demonstrating the landing capabilities has been called off. But, the companies have a lot of future plans which include Hakuto-R Mission 1. The launch is going to take place in October 2021 on a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket. The next mission, Hakuto-R Mission 2 will include a lunar lander and rover planning to take off in March 2023.
In the space industry, a small development also takes a very long time. Constant testings and failures are all part of the journey. Most of the time, finance also becomes a huge obstacle but to date ispace has been successful in raising $90 million.
The Big Plan
Researches and developments of ispace till today are just baby steps for the dream of living in space. Takeshi wants to expand the realm of the human empire where commercial transportation to space will relatively become cheaper. He also wants to start mining operations in space once he successfully establishes soft landing on the moon.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more