25 Sep, 2024
The front wall of the Summit Mission Control Center
Denver, Colorado – ispace technologies, inc. (ispace-U.S.) announced today the opening of the Summit Mission Control Center (MCC) in its headquarters office in Denver, Colorado. The MCC serves as the ground segment hub for the command and telemetry review of spacecraft and customer payloads for ispace’s Mission 3 and all future ispace-U.S. missions.
The MCC invites visitors to explore ispace’s history of lunar exploration before stepping into the heart of mission control, where the ispace’s ongoing chapter of lunar missions continues.
Once inside, operator console stations and large monitors display mission data for team situational awareness. The dark colored space is illuminated by the soft glow of a moon shining down on operators from above, contextualizing the mission’s destination.
The main operation room of the Summit Mission Control Center
The second operation room of the Summit Mission Control Center
A second operations room is dedicated to payload operators and customers hosted on-site during the mission or any pre-launch simulations and rehearsals.
The MCC was built on a foundation of lessons learned from ispace’s Mission 1 operations and Mission 2 preparation. The ispace-US Mission Operations Team has supported Mission 1 and is supporting Mission 2 led by ispace inc. Through that collaboration, many lessons learned were applied to MCC design, operational execution, and training.
“ispace’s vision is to help build a thriving cislunar economy, and the Summit Mission Control Center is a vital part of the operational infrastructure. We are excited to reach this point in our program lifecycle, creating the facility where current and future ispace crewmates will operate our spacecraft to a soft landing on the Moon and where our payload customers will conduct productive missions on the lunar surface and in lunar orbit.”
“By leveraging lessons learned from our counterparts in Tokyo and Luxemburg from ispace Missions 1 and 2, we have been able to accelerate our ground segment development and produce a highly equipped and capable Mission Control Center available for training and preparation years before our launch date,” said Tyler Mundt, ispace-U.S. Mission Director.
ispace-U.S.’s Mission 3 will provide lunar lander services to Schrödinger Basin on the far side of the Moon as part of the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative led by Draper. For the mission, scheduled for 2026, ispace-U.S. will transport and operate government and commercial payload instruments for cislunar science. While the lander communicates directly with Earth during transit, ispace-U.S. will deploy relay satellites into orbit for communication during surface operations.
About ispace technologies U.S.
ispace – U.S. is an American lunar exploration company providing transportation and infrastructure capabilities from Earth to lunar orbit and the surface of the Moon for government and commercial customers. ispace believes that the utilization of lunar resources is the catalyst for enabling human permanence and economic opportunity on and around the Moon and is committed to achieving this goal. The company’s U.S. headquarters serves as the central location for the development of its APEX 1.0 lunar lander, which is being designed, manufactured, and launched in the United States. In partnership with Draper, this lander will deliver a suite of multiple NASA-sponsored science payloads to the lunar surface as part of the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Initiative.