ispace Inc. announced that its board of directors resolved to repay short-term loans to Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Limited and borrow (refinance) long-term loans on March 31, 2025. This will allow ispace to continue raising a total of 1.4 billion yen in working capital for the development and operation of its landers and rovers (including other related expenses).
By refinancing its existing short-term borrowings with long-term borrowings, ispace intends to further increase its liquidity and the stability of its financial base, enabling it to make more agile management decisions, further accelerating the cycle of improving the quality of its technology in space development, and capturing rapidly expanding market demand.
A space startup company working on lunar resource development with the vision of “Expand our planet. Expand our future. ~ Expand the human habitat into space and create a sustainable world ~”. It operates in three locations: Japan, Luxembourg, and the United States, and currently has about 300 staff members. Founded in 2010, it operated “HAKUTO,” one of the five teams that made it to the final round of the Google Lunar XPRIZE race. It developed a small lander (lunar lander) with the aim of providing high-frequency, low-cost transportation services to the moon, and a rover (lunar rover) for lunar exploration. It also launched a lunar data business concept to support entry into the lunar market, aiming to become a gateway for private companies to do business on the moon. On December 11, 2022, it completed the launch of its first lander for Mission 1 using SpaceX’s Falcon 9. The following Mission 2 will be launched on January 15, 2025, and the company plans to attempt a lunar landing again on June 6, 2025 at the earliest. Mission 3 is scheduled to launch in 2026, and Mission 4 (formerly Mission 6) is scheduled to launch in 2027.
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The purpose of Mission 1 is to verify the design and technology of the lander, and to verify and strengthen the business model of providing lunar transportation services and lunar data services. Of the 10 milestones of Mission 1, the company was successful up to Success 8, and even during Success 9, it was successful in obtaining valuable data and know-how for realizing the lunar landing mission, including data from the landing sequence. The data and know-how obtained in Mission 1 will be fed back to the subsequent Mission 2. Furthermore, in Mission 3, the company plans to contribute to NASA’s “Artemis Project” by providing more accurate lunar transportation services.
SOURCE: PRTimes
