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40-564: Ispace Inc . is a publicly traded Japanese company developing robotic spacecraft and other technology to compete for both transportation and exploration mission contracts from space agencies and other private industries. ispace's mission is to enable its clients to discover, map, and use natural lunar resources . From 2013 to 2018, ispace was the owner and operator of the Hakuto team that competed in Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP). The team developed

80-514: A Japanese branch of White Label Space Many of the professionals abandoned the project by 2013, though a group of Japanese members sought to continue with the project, which was renamed from White Label Space to Hakuto , based on the white Hare of Inaba in Japanese mythology . By 2017, ispace had secured $ 90 million in funding and though no teams in the Google Lunar X Prize ever launched before

120-440: A company they perceive as possibly lacking liquidity. For example, if all shareholders were to simultaneously try to sell their shares in the open market, this would immediately create downward pressure on the price for which the share is traded unless there were an equal number of buyers willing to purchase the security at the price the sellers demand. So, sellers would have to either reduce their price or choose not to sell. Thus,

160-457: A future Moon-based infrastructure. The funding for the first two missions was originally secured from a consortium of Japanese funds and companies. In 2018, ispace signed a working agreement with Draper to serve as the team's design agent, which brought about significant changes. In August 2019, ispace announced a restructuring of its lunar program, now called Hakuto-R , in light of rapid increases in customer demand for payload delivery services in

200-401: A long period of time after maturity into a profitable company. However, from 1997 to 2012, the number of corporations publicly traded on US stock exchanges dropped 45%. According to one observer ( Gerald F. Davis ), "public corporations have become less concentrated, less integrated, less interconnected at the top, shorter lived, less remunerative for average investors, and less prevalent since

240-510: A lunar rover named Sorato . ispace is headquartered in Tokyo , Japan , with offices in the United States and Luxembourg . The company's founder and CEO is Takeshi Hakamada. Although ispace later became independent, it began as a partner of a European organization called White Label Space. White Label Space (WLS) was an international team of space engineers that was founded in 2008 to compete in

280-851: A music disc featuring the song ‘SORATO’ by the Japanese rock band Sakanaction , which was initially released in 2018 as a part of the Team Hakuto campaign for the Google Lunar X Prize. Using data collected from a previous lunar scanning mission, ispace determined that the mission would attempt a landing in the Atlas crater in the Mare Frigoris region of the Moon; three other backup locations were selected, like those in Lacus Somniorum , Sinus Iridum and Oceanus Procellarum , among others. In an effort to conserve fuel,

320-626: A partnership with the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), along with Tomy and JAXA 's Sora-Q transformable lunar robot. Hakuto-R Mission 1 houses another payload, that is, a music disc featuring the song ‘SORATO’ by the Japanese rock band Sakanaction . The song was initially released in 2018 as a part of the Team Hakuto campaign for the Google Lunar XPRIZE . Hakuto-R Mission 1

360-563: A proposal for a commercial lunar lander to NASA 's Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program. According to Draper, ispace will serve as the team's design agent. On 21 July 2022, NASA announced that it had awarded a CLPS contract to Draper Laboratories and the team. The long-term strategy of ispace is to build landers and rovers to compete for both transportation and exploration mission contracts from space agencies and private industry. NASA aims at contracting private industries to scout and mine lunar water and other lunar resources to support

400-553: A separate entity, its former shareholders receiving compensation in the form of either cash, shares in the purchasing company or a combination of both. When the compensation is primarily shares then the deal is often considered a merger . Subsidiaries and joint ventures can also be created de novo . That often happens in the financial sector. Subsidiaries and joint ventures of publicly traded companies are not generally considered to be privately held companies (even though they themselves are not publicly traded) and are generally subject to

440-408: Is privately held can buy out the shareholders of a public company, taking the company off the public markets. That is typically done through a leveraged buyout and occurs when the buyers believe the securities have been undervalued by investors. In some cases, public companies that are in severe financial distress may also approach a private company or companies to take over ownership and management of

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480-420: Is traded on a major stock exchange, it is not uncommon when shares are traded over-the-counter (OTC). Since individual buyers and sellers need to incorporate news about the company into their purchasing decisions, a security with an imbalance of buyers or sellers may not feel the full effect of recent news. Hakuto-R Mission 1 This first Hakuto mission was primarily a technology demonstrator and carried

520-404: Is when a company has little or no trading activity and the market price is simply the price at which the most recent trade took place, which could be days or weeks ago. This occurs when there are no buyers willing to purchase the securities at the price being offered by the sellers and there are no sellers willing to sell at the price the buyers are willing to pay. While this is rare when the company

560-600: The Emirates Lunar Mission . Travelling approximately 1,400,000 kilometres (870,000 mi), it is the furthest a privately-funded spacecraft has traveled. Communication with the lander was lost during the final seconds of its April 2023 descent. The project began with engineer Andrew Barton in 2008, who sought to win the Google Lunar X Prize by landing a privately-funded rover on the Moon, and gathered an international group of professionals to create White Label Space . Takeshi Hakamada would found ispace in 2010 as

600-486: The Google Lunar X Prize , for a grand prize of US$ 20 million to send a spacecraft to the Moon's surface, and have it travel 500 meters. WLS was headquartered in the Netherlands and led by Steve Allen. The European side aimed to develop the team's lunar lander while the Japanese group consisting of Tohoku University Space Robotics Lab and led by Kazuya Yoshida was to develop a rover. In 2010, White Label Space Japan LLC,

640-519: The 2018 deadline, the Hakuto team would continue. In April 2022, iSpace was placed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange , receiving a 65% increase in its share price within two weeks. The Hakuto-R lander was measured at 2.3 metres (7.5 ft) tall by 2.6 metres (8.5 ft) wide, with a total weight of approximately 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb) with its payload and fuel. To perform a stable landing,

680-435: The Moon but not land on it. The company signed up for two launches on SpaceX 's Falcon 9 rockets, to take place in 2020 and 2021. ispace is also developing a mission concept called Polar Ice Explorer that would prospect for lunar resources on a region near the lunar south pole . On 10 October 2018, an industry team formed by Draper Laboratory , along with ispace, General Atomics , and Spaceflight Industries submitted

720-557: The United States, companies with over 500 shareholders in some instances are required to report under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ; companies that report under the 1934 Act are generally deemed public companies. A public company possess some advantages over privately held businesses. Many stock exchanges require that publicly traded companies have their accounts regularly audited by outside auditors and then publish

760-470: The accounts to their shareholders. Besides the cost, that may make useful information available to competitors. Various other annual and quarterly reports are also required by law. In the United States, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act imposes additional requirements. The requirement for audited books is not imposed by the exchange known as OTC Pink. The shares may be maliciously held by outside shareholders and

800-433: The animation, saying it was based on real-time telemetry from the lander; that later turned out to be misleading, since the telemetry coming from the lander was not reliable, and the actual attempted landing site was near Atlas crater , as had been decided initially. Communication with the lander was lost during the final moments of descent to the lunar surface at 16:40 UTC (00:40 JST) on 25 April Analysis determined that

840-470: The company reported that the mission was on track for launch in late 2024, with completion of vacuum testing of the lander. ispace Mission 3, delivering the APEX 1.0 lunar lander to Schrödinger Basin on the far side of the Moon , is expected to launch in 2026. Missions 3 through 9 aim to establish ispace's lunar lander as a high-frequency cost-effective transportation system, while Mission 10 and beyond will begin

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880-432: The company. One way of doing so would be to make a rights issue designed to enable the new investor to acquire a supermajority . With a supermajority, the company could then be relisted, or privatized. Alternatively, a publicly traded company may be purchased by one or more other publicly traded companies, with the target company becoming either a subsidiary or joint venture of the purchaser(s), or ceasing to exist as

920-414: The construction of an "industrial platform" to enable the development of lunar water resources. Publicly traded A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange ( listed company ), which facilitates

960-422: The core of international law disputes with regard to industry and trade. Usually, the securities of a publicly traded company are owned by many investors while the shares of a privately held company are owned by relatively few shareholders. A company with many shareholders is not necessarily a publicly traded company. Conversely, a publicly traded company typically (but not necessarily) has many shareholders. In

1000-499: The final stage of landing led to a rapid descent and hard landing on the lunar surface. Hakuto-R Mission 2, carrying the RESILIENCE lunar lander and micro rover , is scheduled for launch in late 2024. In partnership with UNESCO , ispace will deliver a "memory disk" containing 275 languages and other cultural artifacts, aiming to preserve a piece of humanity alive in case of a future threat to humankind's existence on Earth. In June 2024,

1040-444: The firm's stock. For many years, newly-created companies were privately held but held initial public offering to become publicly traded company or to be acquired by another company if they became larger and more profitable or had promising prospects. More infrequently, some companies such as the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs and the logistics services provider United Parcel Service (UPS) chose to remain privately held for

1080-534: The lander was equipped with four landing legs and a main thruster . Hakuto-R Mission 1 was launched on 11 December 2022 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, separating from the rocket 47 minutes later at a distance around 970 kilometres (600 mi) away from Earth. Inside the spacecraft were payloads from the Emirates Lunar Mission rover Rashid in a partnership with the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), along with Tomy and JAXA 's Sora-Q transformable lunar robot. The lander also housed another payload,

1120-438: The lunar exploration industry, especially from the recent Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract awarded to Draper and its partners, including ispace. A significant change was the elimination of the technology demonstration orbiter mission in 2020 in favor of moving more quickly toward a demonstration of landing capabilities. Hakuto-R Mission 1 is a lunar lander carrying the Emirates Lunar Mission rover Rashid in

1160-461: The mission used a slower path to approach the Moon, entering lunar orbit in March 2023. After a five-month travel time, the mission traveled 1,400,000 kilometres (870,000 mi), further than any privately-funded spacecraft, to attempt a lunar landing on 25 April 2023. During the official live-stream, among the four possible landing locations, the site in Lacus Somniorum was initially shown in

1200-425: The number of trades in a given period of time, commonly referred to as the "volume" is important when determining how well a company's market capitalization reflects true fair market value of the company as a whole. The higher the volume, the more the fair market value of the company is likely to be reflected by its market capitalization. Another example of the impact of volume on the accuracy of market capitalization

1240-780: The original founders or owners may lose benefits and control. The principal–agent problem , or the agency problem is a key weakness of public companies. The separation of a company's ownership and control is especially prevalent in such countries as the United Kingdom and the United States. In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission requires firms whose stock is traded publicly to report their major shareholders each year. The reports identify all institutional shareholders (primarily firms that own stock in other companies), all company officials who own shares in their firm, and all individuals or institutions owning more than 5% of

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1280-503: The polity in which they reside. In the United States , for example, a public company is usually a type of corporation though a corporation need not be a public company. In the United Kingdom , it is usually a public limited company (plc). In France , it is a société anonyme (SA). In Germany , it is an Aktiengesellschaft (AG). While the general idea of a public company may be similar, differences are meaningful and are at

1320-582: The predecessor of ispace was founded by Takeshi Hakamada to manage the commercial and technical aspect of the Japanese group. On 30 January 2013, when the European teammates ceased substantial involvement in the prize, the Japan-based members decided to continue the work, and WLS transferred the GLXP participation right to White Label Space Japan LLC. Steve Allen, WLS's leader was succeeded by Takeshi Hakamada. In May 2013,

1360-497: The price per share. For example, a company with two million shares outstanding and a price per share of US$ 40 has a market capitalization of US$ 80 million. However, a company's market capitalization should not be confused with the fair market value of the company as a whole since the price per share are influenced by other factors such as the volume of shares traded. Low trading volume can cause artificially low prices for securities, due to investors being apprehensive of investing in

1400-446: The same reporting requirements as publicly traded companies. Finally, shares in subsidiaries and joint ventures can be (re)-offered to the public at any time. Firms that are sold in this manner are called spin-outs . Most industrialized jurisdictions have enacted laws and regulations that detail the steps that prospective owners (public or private) must undertake if they wish to take over a publicly traded corporation. That often entails

1440-563: The team's parent company, White Label Space Japan changed its name to ispace, while the GLXP team was renamed "Hakuto" on 15 July of the same year. Team Hakuto did not succeed in undertaking a lunar mission during the GLXP, but following the cessation of the competition, ispace continued its lunar exploration plans and, in 2018, the company succeeded in raising over US$ 90 million in private funding to develop its own lunar lander in addition to continuing its work on lunar rovers. By September 2018, ispace planned to test their systems by orbiting around

1480-468: The trade of shares, or not ( unlisted public company ). In some jurisdictions, public companies over a certain size must be listed on an exchange. In most cases, public companies are private enterprises in the private sector, and "public" emphasizes their reporting and trading on the public markets. Public companies are formed within the legal systems of particular states and so have associations and formal designations, which are distinct and separate in

1520-428: The turn of the 21st century". Davis argues that technological changes such as the decline in price and increasing power, quality and flexibility of computer numerical control machines and newer digitally enabled tools such as 3D printing will lead to smaller and more local organization of production. In corporate privatization, more often called " going private ," a group of private investors or another company that

1560-409: The would-be buyer(s) making a formal offer for each share of the company to shareholders. The shares of a publicly traded company are often traded on a stock exchange . The value or "size" of a company is called its market capitalization , a term which is often shortened to "market cap". This is calculated as the number of shares outstanding (as opposed to authorized but not necessarily issued) times

1600-418: Was launched on 11 December 2022 at 07:38 UTC on a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, along with Emirates Lunar Mission and NASA's Lunar Flashlight spacecraft. The mission entered lunar orbit on 21 March 2023 with a lunar landing attempt scheduled for 25 April 2023. Communication with Hakuto-R was lost during the final moments of descent to the lunar surface on 25 April. Analysis determined that a loss of propellant in

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