New Delhi: Tokyo-based ispace and Bengaluru-based Digantara have announced plans for a joint lunar mission focusing on cislunar awareness. As lunar exploration shifts from merely dispatching a series of probes to the Moon to establishing a sustained presence in cislunar space and the surface, a number of New Space technologies are aiming to provide the necessary services. Digantara is a leading space situational awareness (SSA) company, that tracks everything from satellites to solar storms to stray asteroids, all the threats to satellite operations. With the new announcement, Digantara and ispace plans to offer the same service in cislunar space, or the region between the Earth and the Moon.
Founder and CEO of ispace, Takeshi Hakamada says, “Our collaboration with Digantara is about more than reaching the lunar surface. It’s about creating the ecosystem that will not only allow humanity develop a sustained presence on the Moon.” CEO of Digantara, Anirudh Sharma says, “ispace has been at the forefront of private lunar exploration, and we are excited to complement their proven capabilities with our expertise in space domain awareness. Through this joint mission, we are laying the foundation for a sustainable lunar ecosystem, where safe operations, resource utilization, and long-term infrastructure go hand in hand.”
Safe operations in lunar orbit
Digantara is on a mission to make space safer and more transparent, and is now aiming to extend its capabilities beyond Earth orbit. Many of the satellites are in similar orbits because of similar goals. In May 2024, ISRO’s Chandrayaan 2 orbiter had to execute a collision avoidance manoeuvre to avoid getting uncomfortably close to Korea’s Danuri orbiter. As cislunar space gets more crowded, SSA capabilities will be necessary to ensure safe operations. The national space agencies of India and Japan, ISRO and JAXA are headed to the moon together with the Chandrayaan 5/LUPEX mission, currently slotted for a 2027 launch.