Sora-Q is a miniature Lunar rover designed and made by Japanese space agency JAXA, toy manufacturer Tomy, Sony, and Doshisha University. [1]
It was launched to the Moon first on the failed Hakuto-R Mission 1 in 2022, [2] [3] and on 2023 Smart Lander for Investigating Moon mission, where it is officially called the Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2). The rover was successfully deployed and operated after landing on January 19, 2024. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
The baseball-sized rover has a mass of 250 g and diameter of 8 cm and is equipped with two small cameras. LEV-2 extends its shape to crawl on the lunar surface using two wheels at its sides, a method of locomotion inspired by frogs and sea turtles; [9] it can "run" for approximately two hours. [10]
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orbit, and is involved in many more advanced missions such as asteroid exploration and possible human exploration of the Moon. Its motto is One JAXA and its corporate slogan is Explore to Realize.
Atlas is a prominent lunar impact crater that is located in the northeast part of the Moon, to the southeast of Mare Frigoris. Just to the west is the slightly smaller but still prominent crater Hercules. Northeast of Atlas is the large crater Endymion.
A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, including both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was Luna 2 in 1959.
A lunar lander or Moon lander is a spacecraft designed to land on the surface of the Moon. As of 2024, the Apollo Lunar Module is the only lunar lander to have ever been used in human spaceflight, completing six lunar landings from 1969 to 1972 during the United States' Apollo Program. Several robotic landers have reached the surface, and some have returned samples to Earth.
A rover is a planetary surface exploration device designed to move over the rough surface of a planet or other planetary mass celestial bodies. Some rovers have been designed as land vehicles to transport members of a human spaceflight crew; others have been partially or fully autonomous robots. Rovers are typically created to land on another planet via a lander-style spacecraft, tasked to collect information about the terrain, and to take crust samples such as dust, soil, rocks, and even liquids. They are essential tools in space exploration.
SELENE-2, or the Selenological and Engineering Explorer 2, is a cancelled Japanese robotic mission to the Moon that would have included an orbiter, a lander and a rover. It was intended as a successor to the 2007 SELENE (Kaguya) lunar orbiter.
Hakuto (ハクト) or formerly White Label Space (ホワイトレーベルスペース) was a team formed in early 2008 by a group of experienced space professionals inspired by the challenge of the Google Lunar X PRIZE to develop a robotic Moon exploration mission.
A lunar rover or Moon rover is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of the Moon. The Apollo program's Lunar Roving Vehicle was driven on the Moon by members of three American crews, Apollo 15, 16, and 17. Other rovers have been partially or fully autonomous robots, such as the Soviet Union's Lunokhods, Chinese Yutus, Indian Pragyan, and Japan's LEVs. Five countries have had operating rovers on the Moon: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India, and Japan.
The (Japanese) Lunar Exploration Program is a program of robotic and human missions to the Moon undertaken by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and its division, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). It is also one of the three major enterprises of the JAXA Space Exploration Center (JSPEC). The main goal of the program is "to elucidate the origin and evolution of the Moon and utilize the Moon in the future".
Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is a lunar lander mission of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The lander's initial launch date in 2021 was postponed until 2023 due to delays in its rideshare, the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM). On 6 September 2023 at 23:42 UTC, XRISM launched, and SLIM separated from it later that day.
The year 2022 witnessed the number of launches of SpaceX's Falcon rocket family surpassing the CNSA's Long March rocket family, making the United States the country with the highest number of launches in 2022 instead of China. This year also featured the first successful launch of Long March 6A, Nuri, Angara 1.2, Vega-C, Kinetica-1, and Jielong-3. National space agencies' activities in this year is also marred by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, leading to tension between Roscosmos and Western space agencies, threats of ending collaboration on the International Space Station (ISS), and delays on space missions.
The year 2024 is expected to exceed 2023's 223 orbital launches. So far, the year saw the successful first launch of Vulcan Centaur, Gravity-1, and notably the third developmental launch of SpaceX's Starship – IFT-3. Additionally, the final launch of a Delta family rocket occurred in April with a Delta IV Heavy. In May, China launched the Chang'e 6, the first sample return from the far side of the Moon. Following 2020s' trend, it is expected that many more privately-developed launch vehicles will feature a maiden launch in 2024.
ispace Inc. is a public Japanese company developing robotic spacecraft and other technology to compete for both transportation and exploration mission contracts from space agencies and other private industries. ispace's mission is to enable its clients to discover, map, and use natural lunar resources.
The Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (LUPEX) is a planned joint lunar mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The mission would send an uncrewed lunar lander and rover to explore the south pole region of the Moon no earlier than 2026. It is envisaged to explore the permanently shadowed regions on the Moon. JAXA is likely to provide the H3 launch vehicle and the rover, while ISRO would be providing the lander.
The Emirates Lunar Mission was the first mission to the Moon from the United Arab Emirates.
Hakuto-R Mission 1 was a failed private Japanese uncrewed lunar landing mission built and operated by ispace, which was launched in December 2022 for an attempted lunar landing in April 2023.
EagleCam is a deployable CubeSat camera system designed to capture the lunar landing of the Nova-C Odysseus lander on the Moon. Designed and manufactured by staff and students working in the Space Technologies Laboratory at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, it was intended to deploy from Odysseus and take the first photographs of a spacecraft landing on the moon from a third-person perspective. It also planned to test an electrodynamic dust shield system in space for the first time and utilize a Wi-Fi connection to transmit data for the first time on the lunar surface.