With SpaceX Starship, Japan's ispace provides ride-share to the moon

Japanese moon transport company ispace 9348.T said on Wednesday it would start a new, lower-cost lunar cargo business using the Starship heavy rocket and moon lander developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX SPCX.O.

Tokyo-based ispace has bought 500 kg (1,102 lb) of capacity for $50 million on a Starship that would land on the moon as soon as 2030, and will build a lunar surface vehicle that can host payloads from clients worldwide sharing their ride on Starship to the moon, it said.

The new "lunar access integrator" service provides moon-bound "buses" and can complement ispace's ongoing development of dedicated lunar landers, or "taxis", to the moon's surface, said ispace Executive Vice President Hideari Kamiya.

On previous trips to the moon, ispace used SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets for unsuccessful lunar touchdown attempts in 2023 and 2025.

The Tokyo-based company now aims to soft-land three landers, called Ultra, onto the moon by 2030, including a mission that is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme.

While ispace carries on its Ultra missions, the tie-up with SpaceX will "exponentially" accelerate its growth in the lunar infrastructure market, Chief Executive Takeshi Hakamada said.

SpaceX welcomed the expansion of its relationship with ispace to fly missions on Starship, a reusable transportation system which, unlike Falcon 9, includes a spacecraft that Musk's company plans to take to the moon and eventually to Mars.

"Their integration services provide a valuable pathway for smaller payloads to secure a ride to the Moon today, and we look forward to supporting ispace and their customers as they help expand access to the lunar surface," Stephanie Bednarek, SpaceX's vice president of commercial sales, said in a statement.

The relationship is not exclusive. NASA plans to use Starship's first lunar landing in 2028 as part of its Artemis program to send astronauts back to the moon. U.S. lunar rover startup Astrolab has also booked space on a future Starship flight.

"SpaceX approached us first" with the integrator business idea, Hakamada said.

"While we can't rule out other companies entering the market, few might be able to integrate cargo and keep providing services after touching down on the moon."

-Reporting by Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Sonali Paul/Reuters