Investing in Space: Japan's ispace opens Denver headquarters as companies chase moon market

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It seems like everyone wants to go to the moon these days, with serious lunar programs underway in China, India, Japan and the United States. One company is pushing to tap two of those markets: Tokyo-based lunar lander company ispace is rebooting its U.S. subsidiary, aiming to be a key transportation provider in the nascent moon business.

In Denver, Colorado, ispace is cutting the ribbons today on a new U.S. headquarters. The company's invested over $40 million to date in the subsidiary, which allows ispace to sell to NASA – one of the biggest sources of moon money currently – without violating export control regulations.

While the Japanese side of the company is working on flying its "Series 1" lunar lander again after April's crunching first mission, the U.S. side is developing a separate lander it's now calling "Apex 1.0," scheduled to launch on the company's third overall mission.

Ron Garan, named CEO of ispace U.S. in June, is a former NASA astronaut and previously served as senior vice president of high-altitude balloon company World View. Garan's leading the "reboot" of the U.S. division. Though ispace established a Denver office in 2020, the division's been without a leader for about a year, Garan told me.

"We had about 50 employees when I took over. We're over 85 right now, and we'll be over 100 by the end of the year," Garan said.

While Garan said ispace U.S. is "making tremendous progress," he admitted that "it's been a lot of work" due to technical, cultural and organizational challenges. The company's third mission was scheduled to launch in 2025 but is slipping to 2026. 

The new Apex 1.0 lander is replacing its previously planned "Series 2" lander, Garan said. Apex 1.0 is designed to carry as much as 300 kilograms of payload to the surface of the moon. That's lower than the 500 kilograms of payload the initial Series 2 design targeted, but still 10 times the capability of ispace's Series 1 lander.

"We're really committed to helping to create this commercial market, which is going to be absolutely critical to achieving the vision that we want to achieve on the moon," Garan said. "We're building what are effectively prototypes right now, while in parallel developing the production manufacturing capability to be able to do this on a regular basis."

 The U.S. ispace team is one of several companies that have won contracts from NASA to deliver science and research cargo to the moon's surface under the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. In the year ahead, three other U.S. companies – Intuitive Machines, Astrobotic and Firefly – expect to launch competing missions to the moon's surface. But Garan emphasized he and ispace are "rooting for all the other CLPS players too," because each company's success further opens the market for lunar services.

"Part of the reason why there's not excessive demand is because it hasn't really been done yet. We haven't really demonstrated the ability to take commercial payloads to the lunar surface. We're on the verge of that happening," Garan said.

"The only way that we get to the point where we're able to have a permanent human presence, able to have a significant number of people living and working on the moon, is to spark a commercial market. We have a lot of companies out there right now that would love to do stuff on the lunar surface or a lunar orbit, but they're not willing to make the investment because it really hasn't been demonstrated yet," Garan added.

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• NASA returns its first asteroid sample, as the OSIRIS-REx capsule carrying rocks and dust from the asteroid Bennu landed in the Utah desert. – NASA
• Frank Rubio sets American record after 371 days in space: The NASA astronaut returned after more than a year on the International Space Station, shattering the previous record set by NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei of 355 days. – NASA
• FAA closes investigation into New Shepard failure, a year after Blue Origin's NS-23 cargo flight. The regulator requires the company take corrective actions and receive a modified license before launching again. – CNBC
• Review of NASA's Mars Sample Return finds funding unavailable to achieve the mission's timeline or inflated budget. The independent review was explicit that there is "no credible, congruent technical, nor properly margined schedule, cost, and technical baseline" to accomplish MSR, estimating a 2030 launch of the mission would require between $8 billion and $9.6 billion, with $1 billion in annual funding needed starting in 2025. – NASA
• Mynaric hits key laser communications milestone, with its CONDOR Mk3 terminal completing verification testing that shows it complies with the Space Development Agency's standard as the company prepares to deliver the laser terminals to Northrop Grumman for its satellites. – Mynaric
• Northrop Grumman delivers solid rocket boosters to NASA in Florida for the Artemis II launch of the agency's SLS rocket. – Northrop Grumman

• Sierra Space raised $290 million at over $5 billion valuation in a round led by Japanese investors MUFG, Kanematsu and Tokio Marine. The fresh funds come as Sierra Space focuses on getting its Dream Chaser spaceplane flying, which has been in development for years and is scheduled to launch in 2024. – CNBC
• UK Space Agency opens £65 million space tech fund, with the British government program designed to "catalyse investment" for the country's space sector. – UKSA
• UAE commits to mega Yahsat purchase, with the Emirati government pleading to buy $5.1 billion in services over 17 years from the satellite operator. – SpaceNews
• SpaceX wins $70 million Space Force contract for Starshield, in a one-year deal as part of the military's "PLEO" satellite communications program. The award marks the first confirmed deal for Starshield, SpaceX's military-specific satellite network. – CNBC
• Cybersecurity firm Xage awarded $17 million Space Force contract, with the company providing a "mesh-based" service to protect access control and data for the military's Space Systems Command in a five year award. – Xage

• Eutelsat and OneWeb close merger to create Eutelsat Group, a new European satellite giant. Eutelsat CEO Eva Berneke is staying on as the combined group's chief executive, while OneWeb CEO Neil Masterson is leaving at year-end. – CNBC
• Satellogic to redomicile to U.S. from the British Virgin Islands, a conversion the satellite imagery company aims to complete in the first half of next year. After completing the move, Satellogic plans to begin reporting quarterly. – Satellogic

• Bob Smith is leaving Blue Origin, with Dave Limp named as new CEO: After a six-year tenure leading Jeff Bezos' space company, Smith announced in an internal memo that he will exit in December. Shortly after, Bezos announced that Limp, Amazon devices and services chief, will take Smith's place as Blue's chief executive. – CNBC
• Charity Weeden appointed to lead NASA's Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy, coming to the agency as an associate administrator having been the Astroscale U.S. vice president for global space policy and government relations. – NASA
• Todd Stoessell joins Blue Origin as VP and CFO of New Glenn, to assist the rocket program's leader SVP Jarrett Jones. Previously, Stoessell spent over 9 years at Raytheon, most recently its CFO of Advanced Technology, Sustainment & Sensors business. – Stoessell
• Mark Lewis joins Voyager Space's advisory board: The company lauded Lewis, the former chief scientist of the Air Force, as "one of the world's leading hypersonics experts." – Voyager
• Tim White joins AIA as VP of engineering and technology, joining the Aerospace Industries Association after a similar role as a Principal at software-as-a-service company Interos. – AIA
• John Grunsfeld appointed as Chief Strategy Officer of Copernicus Space Corporation, a Massachusetts startup building small space probes. Grunsfeld was also appointed to Copernicus' board of directors, joining the company after serving as the deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute. – Copernicus
• Imelda Alexopoulos announced as Australian venture Fleet Space's Director of Exploration Strategy. Alexopoulos joins the company after more than 15 years at PwC. – Fleet

• Sept. 29: SpaceX's Falcon 9 launches Starlink satellites from Florida.
• Oct. 5: Elon Musk speaking virtually at the 2023 International Astronautical Congress in Baku, Azerbaijan.
• Oct. 5: SpaceX's Falcon Heavy launches NASA's Psyche mission from Florida.