PROFILE
Tell me a little more about ispace : the company ’ s history and how it has grown to become the company that it is today ?
ispace was incorporated by myself ( Takeshi Hakamada ) in Japan in 2010 . Since the company ’ s inception , we have grown steadily , starting from a small office space to a 2-floor office space with 16 employees . In 2015 , Team HAKUTO , a GLXP team managed by ispace and with over 60 pro-bono members , won the GLXP Milestone Prize .
What is ispace as a company ? ispace specialises in developing micro-robotics that will be used to locate , characterise , extract , produce and deliver resources from the lunar surface to customers on the Moon and in cislunar space .
What is the vision / ambition of the company ? ispace aims to be the world ’ s leading lunar exploration company . In the near term ispace will use its micro robotic systems to locate and characterise resources on the lunar surface . In the long term ispace aims to process and store the ice it finds as liquid oxygen ( LOX ) and liquid hydrogen ( LH2 ) which can be used and delivered as a fuel for rockets and satellites to customers on the Moon and in cislunar space .
Who are the people behind ispace ? ispace currently has 16 full time employees . The c-level officers are :
Takeshi Hakamada ( Founder & CEO ) Takeshi studied Aerospace Engineering and received his M . S . degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology . Enchanted by Star Wars movies at a young age , the dawn of the new commercial space industry and the success of non-governmental entities like the Ansari XPRIZE drew his attention and curiosity . Takeshi chose to enter the consulting industry after graduation , where he developed team management skills and led multiple successful cost reduction projects . Since 2010 , he has led Team HAKUTO , competing for the Google Lunar XPRIZE . In 2014 , he contributed to meetings initiated by the Minister of State of Japan to discuss the new space industry .
16 March 2017