Developing the Earth-moon binary system and democratizing space, with ispace Vice-President Global Sales and Strategy, Kyle Acierno.
How was ispace born?
ispace was originally formed by the Google Lunar X Prize team, called Hakuto. This came after a general worldwide call for teams who wanted to develop a lunar lander and a lunar rover to achieve the mission that Google had set.
Lunar X was a $20 million competition that called for privately funded teams to be the first to land a robotic spacecraft on the Moon, travel 500 meters, and transmit back to Earth high-definition video and images.
Originally, our team was created in Japan and they called themselves Hakuto, which means ‘White Rabbit.’ This is what ancient Japanese saw in the surface patterns of the moon. In China they named their rover Yutu, or ‘Jade Rabbit’, after a very similar character.
Was the Lunar X Prize your only target?
When we decided to create a team to challenge for the prize, we realized that we should have a company with a long-term objective. That’s when we decided to create ispace, whereby the "i" stands for the individual.
There's a current myth that space is only for scientists, or that space is something that's really difficult to get involved in. That's a myth that we're trying to bust. So the team was founded in about 2010, and worked on the Google Lunar X Prize mission, which carried on for almost 10 years.
We are really trying to democratize space. We want to allow everybody to be a part of space.
So you are setting the mission yourselves now?
Yes, The X Prize is finished, but we're developing a lander, and a rover to try to be the first private commercial company to go to the moon.
In fact, the idea of developing both a lander and a rover was pretty complicated. That’s why we initially just focused on developing the rover.
The rover was developed under Tohoku University, with Professor Yoshida and his laboratory. We were also partnered with a team in Netherlands called White Label Space for the lander but unfortunately they dropped out, so we needed to look for other landers.
We partnered with a few of them, but ultimately none of them were able to raise enough money, so we went back to the local investors in Japan, where we raised almost $95 million to develop our own lunar lander.
ispace has a very interesting vision for the future. One where Earth and moon become part of a single ecosystem.
The moon has always been called the eighth continent, and a lot of people see it as a stepping stone. Actually Kraft Erikson said, "If God wanted us to travel into space, he would have given us the moon."
The moon plays a very important role in helping us begin to discover the stars. And, we think, just like the new world, America gave opportunities for people to develop new types of political systems, the moon serves as a ground for us to develop all sorts of new ideas and technologies and systems.
There could even be new political systems, but our intention is to basically develop the railroad, the transportation that will make the moon accessible. Because right now it's not accessible.
Once we are able to provide re-occurring, economically incentivizing trips to the lunar surface, then we basically give the other people that platform to test their technologies, to demonstrate new R&D, and to try new systems in the future.
But the idea is that the Earth and the moon will become a single binary system.
Your overall focus is very much on frozen water, why is that?
Well, commodities are required to fund, drive and incentivize the explorers.
Throughout history there's always been something driving exploration. If you think about the original explorers who left Europe, they were looking for gold and then there was the silks and spices. In Canada, they were interested in fur.
So there needs to be that one commodity that drives people. For space, we think it's water. That's because, right now, the most powerful fuel you can create is a mix of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
So, if we find water ice on the moon, we believe that ice can be used not only to support future life - human life or plant life - on the lunar surface, but also as a commodity that's sold to rocket companies who want to go further into space.
That race is happening right now. The race to discover, measure, understand, evaluate and develop economic models. We're trying to clearly understand that value chain, see where we can play a role, and we’re inviting others to join us, because we are absolutely certain that we can't do this by ourselves.
Is water the short or long term goal?
I would say it's a long term goal. It's not the short term goal because it will still take a while before we can extract, process, deliver and ultimately sell those resources.
The short term goal is to build upon what some of our colleagues are working on. Blue Origin and SpaceX are trying to decrease the costs of getting into orbit. Our mission is to decrease the costs of getting from space to the moon. We want to continue that transportation railway.
In the short term, that's how we're going to make a profit - by delivering things to the lunar surface. This could be anything: commercial items, scientific instruments, robots, or energy producing items. That's the real short term goal and then all of those things will eventually lead to a water focused economy.
How did Luxembourg come into the story?
From the beginning, space resources were something we were looking into.
When the SpaceResources.lu Initiative was announced in 2016 we made a trip here to Luxembourg, to determine whether or not there was a good fit.
We found that Luxembourg was focused on not only providing access to funding, but also developing a legal and political framework that would help to lift this new industry off the ground. In 2017 we decided to open our office here in Luxembourg.
And how has it been so far, here in Luxembourg?
I moved from Tokyo so that was a bit of a shock. But I’m Canadian. That was one of the reasons why I personally really liked Luxembourg - because I'm from a small town myself and coming back to a small green, environmentally beautiful country with trees everywhere, that was very attractive.
We were able to find some partners really early on, especially LIST and the university. With them we were able to develop an offering for what we will develop here in Luxembourg.
Receiving that support from outside the government has been incredibly helpful in developing our business here. Overall, it's been an excellent experience in Luxembourg. There are still definitely some things that need to be improved, but we think that having the government be so open, and the Luxembourg Space Agency now created are both really helpful.
You studied at the International Space University in Strasbourg, not that far from Luxembourg.
Yes, what a lot of people don't realize is that space has room for everybody. Because it's such a large industry, it’s all encompassing.
I am a Bachelor of Arts student. I studied environmental security and that's how I first became interested in space. I was always looking for big solutions to global problems.
Some of the travelling that I've done showed me the state of the world. That made me a bit jaded in my outlook for our future on this planet, so I began looking for an alternative to green energy, which was ‘the big thing.’
That's when I started to look into space as a potential opportunity ground, to relieve some of the pressure that's been put on our planet for resources.
What does it take to get into the space industry?
I think the most important thing is the desire. I thought that I could play a role and in order to do that, of course, it's important to have the education. That's where the International Space University plays such an important role.
This new space economy is really starting to diversify and grow. We need a lot of people from other fields, so that the industry has diversified thought, and it's able to compete against other sectors that are growing and trying to compete for human resources.
The International Space University is a great university to give you an all encompassing education. And it’s not just about engineering, it includes science, humanities, business, law.
One of my lecturers was Professor Yoshida, one of the founders of our company and the laboratory that helps us to develop the rover. He introduced me to the project and the Google Lunar X Prize, but also to ispace. Now, 4 years later, our company counts almost 75 people.
So it’s a good thing that the University of Luxembourg has also launched its interdisciplinary space master degree.
Absolutely, it's completely necessary.
I think that, first of all, we need to educate more people about the opportunities that exist in space, so that they become attracted to the industry. After that we need to provide them with a quality education and support the companies that are here.
We will be hiring five to ten people in Luxembourg over the next few months, so we have a tremendous need for more talent. The company as a whole is looking for some 40 people. So the timing is right. I think the program that the Government of Luxembourg is developing will be a good addition.
What kind of people are you looking?
It's a mix. We are looking for business people who can help in business development and sales, creating new sales models, because we're sort of challenging this new industry.
We are, of course, looking for engineers too - every type of engineer. From system engineers to the subsystem engineers. We're also looking for finance people, lawyers and policy analysts to help us develop new legal frameworks and deal with all of our internal organizational stuff.
Were you able to find people with the right skills in Luxembourg?
Luxembourg has been very supportive and we've been really lucky in hiring people here so far.
We have received almost 500 applications for every position that we've posted. And we've been very happy to find a lot of Luxembourg talent. About 25% of our staff are Luxembourgish and we're continuously impressed with the quality of applicants that come from here.
We're hiring people with an advanced degree - everyone here has at least a bachelor's degree, most have masters or PhDs. That means we're also attracting a lot of educated people to Luxembourg, which helps build this country in a positive way.
The Space initiative is creating value for the country. People are leaving their homes around the world to come and live here. They’ve all been very happy so far. We're very thankful.
Can you reveal anything about your upcoming missions?
Many people think that space is still something that's going to happen a decade or 20 years, or even 30 years from now.
But, our next mission to the moon is next year.
In 2020, we are going to be orbiting the moon and in 2021 we intend to land. We still think we will be the first commercial company to land on another planetary body. Commercial rather than private. It’s important to make this distinction.
Are you referring to the recent Israeli mission?
Yes, yes. They're a private company, but they're definitely not commercial.
What's the difference?
Well, the difference is that they're basically a non-profit organization which raises most of its money through philanthropy, doing this mostly for educational purposes.
We were incredibly impressed and supportive of them and we wish them the best of luck. But our money was raised through venture capital. We're very much sales orientated. So we're really a commercial company. We're doing this to make money and because we have a long term vision for the utilization of resources in space. So that sort of differentiates us from them.
There's a number of other competitors, but we are the only company with verified launch contracts. We've purchased two launches from SpaceX, which will put us on track to be the first commercial company.
So you have to make sure that you don’t “miss” your flight?
Well of course! We have a window in the second quarter of 2020. To get to the moon we need to make that. This puts a lot of positive pressure on the group.
What will these first missions achieve?
The first two missions are basically research and development, we actually don't mean to bring any customers along.
We're demonstrating proof that we have the technical capabilities to do what we say we're going to do. We may still have a little bit of room on our lander to put a payload or two, but there's nothing confirmed at this stage, besides the solid state battery from one of our partners. That's the only confirmed payload that we've announced, up to this point.
You made an announcement recently, about your new mission sponsors. They include NGK, Japan Airlines, the insurance company Mitsui Sumitomo, as well as the news company Asahi Shimbun. What does the diversity of your sponsors tell you?
That's a good question. Asahi Shimbun is our local media partner, but then we have three corporate sponsors. NGK is a battery company. Then we have another insurance company, they’re going to help us to develop lunar insurance. JAL is going to be assisting us with our lander integration and, of course, developing a new space business themselves.
So what you see here are three companies who essentially had no relationship to space. We are providing them with this access. We believe that space is going to be a market.
Tell us about the payload you have announced, the batteries
NGK are developing these solid state batteries that solve a big problem. The only way to explore space long-term right now is if you use RTGs or radioisotope thermoelectric generators. These generators use radioactive materials to generate heat as they decay into non-radioactive materials. The heat used is converted into electricity by an array of thermocouples which then power the spacecraft.
That poses a lot of difficulties for private companies who want to send things to space. It's pretty complicated to send nuclear technology to the moon if you're a private company.
So by developing a solid state battery that's able to survive the lunar night, NGK helped us to solve a really, really big problem and in the process made things a lot safer.
How about the insurance company? Will your rover be insured in case it crashes?
Exactly. Right now, there's basically only insurance up to geostationary orbit (36,000 km), but there's no insurance available after that.
No one is able to insure because they don't have a statistical model that they can develop. Through this partnership, they'll be able to develop new types of insurance offerings and that will reduce risk for companies.
This, we hope, will lead to more investment into the sector. So it's pretty exciting, actually.
Talking about insurance, what are the challenges that sometimes keep you awake at night?
From the beginning, we have positioned ourselves as a global company. That means we’ve established offices in Europe, America, and Asia.
When you look at the space sector, it’s mostly governments that are still doing exploration. Obviously NASA has the biggest budget and then ESA is next. Japan comes shortly after, with China and India. Because of that, we're able to compete for contracts in all of those different regions.
That's the opportunity, but one of the challenges is that space is still very much focused on security. It plays a big role in the military and it has a very close relationship with national identity. Because of this, many nations prefer to subsidize, or support local companies.
We think that competition is best. It leads to a dramatic decrease in prices, which will thereby allow all nations and all people to access space. This is why we're actively trying to find ways that we can work in competition, fairly, across all of the different regions.
On the private side, we still have a lot of convincing to do in terms of showing people that space is an area where they can expand their business. These are things that we actively are trying to find solutions to. They keep us working and pretty late, every night!
Author: Lynn Robbroeckx, Luxembourg Space Agency
