The Japanese company iSpace has completed the assembly of a miniature rover that will go to the moon this year . The micro-rover, named Tenacious, was developed by iSpace's European division in Luxembourg and will be sent to Japan for integration into the Resilience lander of iSpace's second HAKUTO-R mission.
Tenacious is a compact device with a height of 26 cm, a width of 31.5 cm and a length of 54 cm. The weight of the microrover is about 5 kg. It is equipped with a front-mounted HD camera designed to capture images of the lunar surface. The rover will be controlled and data will be received from it by ground stations on Earth via the lander.
This is iSpace's second attempt to perform a soft landing on the Moon. The first, made in April 2023, ended in failure due to software problems. However, the company, driven by the widespread interest in lunar space missions and partially funded by the Luxembourg Space Agency under contract with the European Space Agency (ESA), continued its efforts in this direction.
„I am delighted to witness the completion of the development, production and actual launch of the first European lunar rover from Luxembourg to the Moon,” Tadahiro Matsubara, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Luxembourg, said in a statement. “This is an important step for the Luxembourg government, which is actively promoting the industrialization of the space segment”, added Matsubara.
Tenacious will be carried to the Moon aboard the Resilience lander. The launch is planned for later this year from Cape Canaveral in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. In addition to Tenacious, the same lander will carry commercial and scientific equipment to the moon, contributing to NASA's Artemis program.
Note that iSpace is also working on its third mission, which will be the first to use the APEX 1.0 lunar module currently in development. This mission is expected to launch in 2026.