The Japanese space company ispace will bring a robot ball from the Japanese space agency JAXA to the moon next year. The robot will take pictures there and enable research into the lunar dust. After landing, the two halves of the ball will slide open, allowing it to drive and shoot.
The ball will be launched next year along with ispace’s HAKUTO-R lunar lander for its first moon mission. According to JAXA, the robot is “ultra-compact and ultra-light”. The ball has a diameter of 8 centimeters and weighs 250 grams. He rides on two wheels.
The robot is being assembled by tech manufacturer Sony, toy maker Tomy and Doshisha University, among others. In 2016, JAXA and Tomy started researching the robot, but it wasn’t until 2019 that plans to actually build it started to gain momentum.
A lunar lander from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is also accompanying the ispace mission. If all goes well, the UAE and Japan will be the fourth and fifth countries after the US, Russia and China to put a vehicle on the moon.
Data from ispace’s mission could later feed into JAXA’s plans to put the so-called Lunar Cruiser, a vehicle made in collaboration with Toyota, on the moon. This rover should be able to transport people on the moon by the end of this decade.
Image: JAXA/Tomy Company/Sony/Doshisha University