Takeshi Hakamada (left), Founder & CEO of ispace and Anirudh Sharma (right), Founder & CEO of Digantara
at India-Japan Economic Forum in Tokyo
Bengaluru/Tokyo, September 5, 2025 – Digantara, India’s leading Space Domain Awareness company, and ispace, inc., a global lunar exploration company from Japan, today announced the beginning of a landmark collaboration to establish a cislunar situational awareness and domain infrastructure. The announcement was made in Tokyo alongside the 15th Annual India–Japan Summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, underscoring how government-to-government ties are being reinforced by private-sector leadership in space.
Building on the legacy of India’s Chandrayaan missions, the upcoming ISRO–JAXA Lunar Polar Exploration (LuPEX) mission, and ispace’s pioneering commercial lunar missions, this collaboration marks a turning point in Asia’s lunar ambitions. It represents a significant large-scale commercial collaboration between Indian and Japanese space startups, signaling a new era of cross-border innovation.
By combining Digantara’s expertise in space situational awareness with ispace’s lunar landing capabilities, the mission aims to lay the foundation for long-term infrastructure, logistics, and resource utilization around the Moon, creating the essential building blocks for a sustainable lunar ecosystem.
“Our collaboration with Digantara is about more than reaching the lunar surface. It’s about creating the ecosystem that enables humanity’s sustained presence on the Moon. By aligning with the QUAD framework, we are ensuring that this future is cooperative, transparent, and sustainable” said Takeshi Hakamada, Founder & CEO of ispace.
“ispace has been at the forefront of private lunar exploration, and we are excited to complement their proven capabilities with our expertise in space domain awareness. Through this joint mission, we are laying the foundation for a sustainable lunar ecosystem, where safe operations, resource utilization, and long-term infrastructure go hand in hand.” said Anirudh Sharma, CEO of Digantara.
The announcement of this joint mission highlights the next phase of India–Japan cooperation in space: private-sector partnerships building the systems that will shape humanity’s future beyond Earth.
