KDDI is collaborating with the private lunar exploration team HAKUTO to send a lunar lander to the moon.
KDDI announced on March 23rd that it will become an official partner of "HAKUTO," the Japanese team competing in the world's first private lunar exploration race, the "Google Lunar XPRIZE."
This race requires landing a privately developed unmanned rover on the moon, driving it 500 meters, and then transmitting still images and video back to Earth. Currently, 16 teams are participating, with the first successful team receiving $20 million (approximately ¥2.2 billion).
KDDI will now leverage its accumulated communication technologies to jointly develop the lunar rover's communication system with HAKUTO. This includes technologies for communication on the lunar surface, as well as compression and restoration techniques for high-resolution video and still image data. The moon presents a harsh environment with temperature swings exceeding 250 degrees, extreme dryness, and powdery sand. KDDI will play a crucial role in this project by building an uninterrupted wireless communication system within unpredictable radio wave conditions. The joint project is named "au×HAKUTO MOON CHALLENGE."
KDDI President Takashi Tanaka stated, "I want our engineers to pursue their dreams even more. Despite the many anticipated challenges, we will provide our accumulated technology and experience to the fullest extent to strongly support this mission. We hope this experience will be the first step toward developing new space and communication technologies in the near future." The plan aims for the moon by the end of 2017.
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