Svmuu News: Shares of Japanese space exploration company ispace surged nearly 19% on Thursday, marking their largest single-day gain in six months. This followed the company’s announcement of a partnership with SpaceX to provide lunar cargo transport services using SpaceX’s Starship rocket. The company will develop a cargo transport system capable of moving customer payloads weighing up to 500 kilograms several kilometers across the lunar surface. The system is expected to be launched by Starship no earlier than 2030, and ispace has already purchased 500 kilograms of payload capacity for this purpose.
Company CEO Takeshi Hakamada stated, “There is significant potential demand for transport services, and this is precisely the opportunity we hope to seize.” He also pledged that the company would ensure the success of its next landing. Previously, ispace’s two attempts to land on the Moon ended in failure—in 2023 due to software issues and in 2025 due to hardware malfunctions. According to the company’s plans, its next lunar landing mission is scheduled for 2028, and it plans to launch an orbital satellite in 2027 prior to that. (Jin Shi)