Official Fan Meeting to be Held in Tokyo

Do you want to be part of a revolution in private sector lunar exploration?

Nine months after the official White Label Space kick-off event in Japan, the team has reached the end of the planning phase and its spectacular moon mission is about to get underway.

This event will begin with an overview of the team's activities, and then move into an open discussion where everyone is free to interact with the team members, exchanging opinions and ideas or to ask questions about mission. Splinter meetings on specific themes will also be held. The aim of the discussions is to formally adopt the team's mission plan.

Share your ideas, take responsibility and be part of a unique team as it undertakes the first ever open space development. This is a once in a liftetime chance to see dreams becoming reality!

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is a race for unmanned lunar exploration with US$30 million in prize money sponsored by Google. The competition involves 29 official teams from 18 countries, and White Label Space is the only team in Japan. In addition to aerospace engineering professor Kazuya Yoshida of Tohoku University, the team also includes professionals in PR and advertising and management consultanting, as well as young researchers working in diverse fields of the arts and sciences. So to attend this event you are not expected to be a rocket scientist or astrophysicst - creative contributions are sought from everyone!

Please join us at this participatory event and become part of the new wave of open space development!

Programme

Title:
Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Official Fan Meeting in Japan
An official fan event for the Japanese team participating in the US$30 million competition for robotic lunar exploration.

Date and Time: (to be confirmed)
Saturday, June 4th, 2011
Doors open: 17:30
Start: 18:00
End: 20:30

Venue:
TOKYO CULTURE CLUB
Address: 3 1-chome, Koto Ward, Tokyo
(Five minute walk from Yurikamome Station)

Contents:
GLXP overview and introduction of the activities of the mission team. Participants can exchange ideas freely with other members and questions and ideas unmanned lunar exploration mission. Thematic group discussions will also be held.

Presentating:
Takeshi Hakamada, CEO of White Label Space Japan
Other key members of the team will also be on hand for questions and discussions

Tickets:
Advance tickets ¥2,000
Tickets at door: ¥2,500
(Food and drinks are provided for an additional ¥600)

Notes:
Admission is strictly limited to available seating according to numbered tickets.
Food and drinks will be served during the event, but billed seperately (beer ¥600,soft drinks ¥390

Contact:
events@whitelabelspace.com

***

Dr Andrew Barton to Present at University of Queensland

Dr Andrew Barton, chairman of White Label Space will speak at the University of Queensland next Wednesday on the challenges provided by the Google Lunar X PRIZE, and how his team with help from their partners will meet and overcome them, ushering in a new era of space innovation.

Date: Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Time: 6:30pm - 9:30pm
Location: University of Queensand, Hawken building (Num 50), Room T105, Brisbane, Australia

For more information, contact events@whitelabelspace.com.

***

Presentation at Waseda Festival

In an event today at Waseda University in Tokyo, Takeshi Hakamada, the CEO of White Label Space Japan, addressed students and members of the public about the team's Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) mission.

Below is a photo taken during the event, which was part of a Space 2.0 event that also included a talk by Japan's first space tourist, Noriaki Inami (the link points to his blog).


Takeshi Hakamada, together with other Japanese members of White Label Space, is operating a Japanese language blog that covers the team's activities for the Japanese audience.

***

Paper for IAC 2010

White Label Space team member, Juergen Schlutz, will present a paper at the upcoming International Astronautics Congress (IAC) 2010 in Prague. The paper is co-authored by a number of other team members and covers many technical and commercial aspects of the team's GLXP effort.

For those interested in attending the presentation, please follow the Session Details.

Below is the abstract.

FEASIBILITY STUDY AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR THE WHITE LABEL SPACE GLXP MISSION

This paper presents a lunar surface mission concept developed by the White Label Space team, an official competitor in the Google Lunar X PRIZE. The paper also presents a development roadmap for realizing the mission in a cost-effective and timely manner, as well as a long-term vision of the White Label Space team beyond the PRIZE. This work builds upon an earlier mission concept published by White Label Space members in December 2009, and provides the results of a quantitative study conducted during 2010. The quantitative study demonstrated the technical feasibility of the mission and the resulting system engineering budgets for the main driving parameters are reported. To maximize the appeal to potential sponsors and investors, the mission architecture and roadmap were designed to retire the key risks with minimum initial investments during the early stages of the mission's development. The team's long-term vision was developed to be synergistic with the latest international plans for planetary science and exploration, both public and private, thus providing an inspiration platform for potential sponsors.

Special Yuri's Night Seminar at TU Munich

On Monday the 12'th of April, White Label Space's lead engineer for the lander, Dr Andrew Barton, will present a special seminar at the Technical University of Munich (TU-München) on a Roadmap for a European Lunar Lander. The event will coincide with the Yuri's Night celebrations in Munich.

(Map)

For more details about this event contact events@whitelabelspace.com.

***

Pictures from Professor Yoshida Visit to AOES

Saturday 27th February 2010, professor Kazuya Yoshida gave a seminar at the White Label Space Headquarters located at the offices of AOES Group BV in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. In his seminar he explained the technical challenges of lunar rovers and presented the upcoming plans for the White Label Space rover developments currently underway at the Space Robotics Laboratory at Tohoku University in Japan (see recent video post).

Accompanying him on the podium was Dr Andrew Barton, the chairman of the White Label Space Foundation, who provided an introduction to latest activities at the White Label Space Headquarters and the team's plans for the rest of 2010 and beyond.

After the presentation, the visitors were treated to a display of mock-ups as well as sample hardware and posters from the team's Partners.

The event was also the first chance to show a prototype of the egress ramp system that enables the Rover to safely drive from the top of the landing platform down onto the surface of the Moon. The egress ramp prototype was built by AOES engineers and was inspired by the ramps used in the successful Lunakhod Moon rover missions by the Soviet Union.

Also on display was hardware from the Wroclaw University of Technology, including a back-up antenna from the ARISS project. Two such antennas were successfully launched in 2008 attached to the Columbus module of the International Space Station (ISS).

***

Events

White Label Space members will be present at the following upcoming events;

In 2011:

• July 11-12, GLXP Team Summit, MountainView, California, USA.
• September 30 - October 2, European Mars Convention 11, New Chatel, Switzerland

For more information please contact events@whitelabelspace.com.

***

WLS Presents at University of Tokyo

Yesterday, in the team's first major event in Japan, two of the technical leaders in the White Label Space team presented their latest plans for the Google Lunar X PRIZE.


Professor Kazuya Yoshida, the lead engineer of the Rover and Dr Andrew Barton, lead engineer for the Lander, presented to a crowd of over 50 including many prominent members of Japan's space industry. Also sharing the podium was Misuzu Onuki, CEO of NewSpace Consultants and prolific space 2.0 author explained the benefits and challenges of private space exploration with a particular emphasis on increasing Japan's involvement in this exciting field.

Dr Peter Diamandis from the X PRIZE Foundation also joined the proceedings remotely by sending a video email welcoming Japanese involvement in the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

The event also served as a kick-off meeting for the Japanese branch of White Label Space with enthusiastic brainstorming continuing until the early hours of the morning.

White Label Space aims to harness the advertising budgets of some of the world's biggest brands to achieve its Google Lunar X PRIZE mission and the connection with Japan is very important since that country has many of the world's top technology firms and biggest advertisers. The team is planning to develop a "made in Japan" rover that will provide sponsors with a strong platform to reach out to the general public, sending a message of technological advancement and commercial leadership.

Jon Oxer to Present at linux.conf.au

Jon Oxer, member of our open source partner Lunar Numbat, will present at linux.conf.au, (the Linux Conference of Australasia) on Thursday the 21st of January in Wellington, New Zealand.

In his talk Jon will discuss Lunar Numbat's progress and also some of the technical challenges they are facing in their support of the White Label Space GLXP mission.

Jon Oxer is a member of the Lunar Numbat build team and is currently working on the throttle control system for the White Label Space lunar lander. He has written four books, and along with Hugh Blemings, and the latest called Practical Arduino was just publised. By day Jon works as Technical Director of a web application development company, and by night he's working to connect every part of his house, car, and garden to the Internet using a combination of Arduino and gaffer tape.

White Label Space at IAC

For those of you attending the IAC in Glasgow this week, keep an eye out for our special undercover operatives who will be scoping out the scene and making some contacts with potential parnters!