Japanese lunar lander company ispace raises $53.5 million in stock sale

WASHINGTON — Japanese lunar lander developer has raised $53.5 million in a stock sale to help fund development of upcoming missions.
The Tokyo-based company, which went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange nearly a year ago, announced March 28 that it completed a sale of 10.25 million shares of stock, raising approximately 8.1 billion yen ($53.5 million). The shares were sold to institutional investors outside of Japan.
Most of the funding — about 7.1 billion yen — will go towards various elements of what the company calls Mission 3, a lander being developed by its American subsidiary, ispace U.S., for Draper. That APEX 1.0 lander will fly a mission in 2026 for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, going to the far side of the moon.
The company said 1.8 billion yen will be used to cover part of the cost of two relay satellites being built by Blue Canyon Technologies to handle communications between the farside lander and the Earth. It is spend...

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