CLPS heats up with ispace set to take an early lead

 NASA’s CLPS (commercial lunar payloads services) has been a divisive program for many years, set up after the cancellation of the Lunar Prospector mission in 2018, it has the aim of using private companies to send science payloads to the lunar services with multiple landers and rovers. So far 8 missions have been contracted and the first mission from Japans ispace is scheduled to launch on the 30th of November at the time of writing.

This is a risky move by NASA, trusting private companies to achieve the lofty goal landing a probe on the surface of the Moon, so far only a feat that has been achieved by the might of 3 major countries: USA, Russia and China. The program offers many benefits with cheaply sending science packages to lunar surface in order to support the ambitious Artemis program that aims to send humanity back to the moon for the first time in 50 years. However many have questioned the technical prowess of private industry to achieve this feat.

However, if this program were to succeed, it would represent the greatest leap in humanities exploration of the moon since Apollo 11. This is because with cheap and fast access to the lunar surface, our nearest neighbour become so much more accessible and we are that much closer to creating a permanent settlement on another world.

ispace - a company with a troubled past.

ispace was originally created as a partner to WLS (white label space) as a competitor in Googles lunar x-prize. This competition challenged companies to send a lander to the moon, traverse 50 meters and send back HD video from the surface. WLS, based in Europe, was to build the lander and the primarily volunteer Japanese team was to build a small rover called sorato to traverse the distance. However when the European team ceased development on the lander, ispace stepped up to create the Hakuto lander that would take them to the moon. However the 2018 deadline for the competition came and went and there was no lander on the surface of the moon for any compay.

In August 2019 ispace announced a restructuring of their lunar program due to rapid increase in demand for payload delivery services in the lunar exploration industry to the CLPS program. This became the Hakuto-R program, where a significant change would be the elimination of a previous technology demonstration orbiter mission in favour of moving more quickly to a demonstration of landing capabilities.

After the mission launches on a Falcon 9 block 5 next week, check back in as we will discuss the aims of this mission and what payloads it has on board.