Japanese billionaire Maezawa cancels moon flyby mission (updated)

ZOZO

01/06/2024 07:35

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       TOKYO, June 1 (Reuters) - Japanese billionaire Yusaku
Maezawa cancelled his "dearMoon" mission, which the project said
was to have been the first private flight around the moon, the
mission announced on Saturday.
    The team had originally aimed to make 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.
    "Without clear schedule certainty in the near-term, it is
with a heavy heart that Maezawa made the unavoidable decision to
cancel the project," it said. "To all who have supported this
project and looked forward to this endeavor, we sincerely
appreciate it and apologize for this outcome."
    The statement gave no further details on the cause of the
cancellation.
    Elon Musk's SpaceX named Maezawa, the colourful founder of
Japanese online fashion store Zozo Inc  3092.T , 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,
launching on a Soyuz rocket.
    In 2022, Maezawa announced that K-pop star TOP 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.
    

 (Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by William Mallard)
 ((tetsushi.kajimoto@thomsonreuters.com; +81-3-6441-1829;))