Japanese billionaire cancels first private flight mission around the Moon

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa canceled his “dearMoon” mission, which, according to the project, would have been the first private flight around the Moon, the mission announced on Saturday (1st).

The team originally intended to carry out the circumlunar flight with celebrities on board by the end of last year, but that became “unfeasible,” the mission said in a statement on its website.

“With no clear certainty of the timeline in the short term, it was with regret that Maezawa made the inevitable decision to cancel the project,” he said. “To everyone who supported this project and eagerly awaits this endeavor, we sincerely thank and apologize for this outcome.”

In a separate post on the mission website, Maezawa suggested that the cause of the cancellation was uncertainty about the project’s development, saying he signed the contract in 2018 based on the assumption that the launch would occur in late 2023.

“It’s a development project, so it is what it is, but it’s still uncertain when Starship could be launched,” Maezawa said.

“I cannot plan my future in this situation and I feel terrible about making crew members wait any longer, hence the difficult decision to cancel at this time.”

Elon Musk’s SpaceX named Maezawa, founder of Japanese online fashion store Zozo Inc, its first private passenger in 2018.

Three years later, he was the first private passenger to visit the International Space Station in more than a decade, using a Soyuz rocket.

In 2022, Maezawa announced that TOP K-pop star and DJ Steve Aoki would be among the eight crew members he planned to take on the dearMoon mission.

In November, he said the flyby mission would be delayed until this year or later.

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