According to news on November 16, Japanese space start-up Ispace said on Thursday that they will try again to send a lunar rover to the lunar surface next year. This will be Ispace's second lunar mission. In April this year, their first attempt to land a lunar rover on the lunar surface ended in failure. Ispace said on Thursday that the second mission would take place as early as 2024 in the northern hemisphere winter, launching on a Falcon 9 rocket. After landing on the moon, the rover will take photos and collect rocks from the lunar surface.

Ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said: "We may not be the first company to land on the moon, but the experience and data gained are crucial."

The entire lunar module was named "Resilience" and carried a water electrolyzer, a module for experimental food production, a deep space probe, a commemorative metal plate about the Japanese anime Gundam and a lunar rover developed by Ispace.

The lunar rover weighs about 5 kilograms and is 26 centimeters tall. It is equipped with a high-definition camera that can capture lunar surface images, and is also equipped with a shovel to collect lunar surface rocks. The mission will contribute to NASA's Artemis program to land astronauts on the moon.

Ispace's European subsidiary develops and builds the lunar rover to make it as small and light as possible.

Julien Lamamy, CEO of Ispace Europe, said: "Every gram counts. Even though it's small and cute, it's also very strong."

Ispace's Hakuto-R mission 1 lunar module was originally scheduled to land on the lunar surface in late April this year, but lost contact shortly after launching the final stage of approaching the lunar surface. The company later confirmed that the lunar module may have had a hard landing, a major setback for Ispace as it leads Japan into the growing commercial space industry.

Ispace said: "The flight model of the second mission has been improved, taking into account the necessary software verification, expanding the landing simulation range, and conducting additional field testing of the radar sensor in order to further improve the mission accuracy."

Before Ispace announced its second lunar landing mission, the Japanese Space Agency successfully launched the H2-A rocket in September this year. This heavy-lift launch vehicle carries an advanced imaging satellite and a lightweight unmanned lunar module and is scheduled to land on the moon in January next year.

In August this year, the Indian lunar module landed near the south pole of the moon. A few days earlier, a Russian spacecraft had attempted to land in the same area but failed due to engine failure.

Ispace, founded in 2010, has said it hopes to establish a lunar base by 2040 and plans to make profits by delivering goods and equipment to the moon.

The company's competitors include Intuitive Machines, a US lunar exploration company headquartered in Houston, and Astrobotic Technology, a Pittsburgh-based company. These companies are competing to launch the first commercial lunar module.

Despite growing interest in the emerging commercial space industry, a general lack of payload-capable rockets has left many companies scrambling to find launch avenues, while others have delayed or canceled planned launches.

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa once planned to fly around the moon on a SpaceX Starship. Last week, he said he had to cancel those plans indefinitely after a Starship prototype exploded during a test flight in April.

Late on Wednesday, U.S. time, SpaceX received permission to launch the Starship for the second time, and the company plans to conduct another flight test of the Starship later this week.