Mission around moon carrying Irish artist is cancelled

A Japanese billionaire-funded project, which had claimed to be the first private flight around the moon and on which an Irish artist was to be a passenger, has been cancelled.

Yusaku Maezawa announced that he was cancelling his “dear Moon” mission this morning.

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.

Cork-born photographer Rhiannon Adam was chosen as one of the eight passengers onboard the SpaceX rocket , which also included DJ Steve Aoki and K-pop star TOP.

“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.”

In a separate post on the mission website, Mr Maezawa suggested the cause of the cancellation was uncertainty over the project development, saying he signed the contract in 2018 based on the assumption the launch would come by the end of 2023.

“It’s a developmental project so it is what it is, but it is still uncertain as to when Starship can launch,” Mr Maezawa said.

“I can’t plan my future in this situation, and I feel terrible making the crew members wait longer, hence the difficult decision to cancel at this point in time.”

Following the announcement, Ms Adam said it was a “missed opportunity”.

“To say I’m devastated would be an understatement. This is such a missed opportunity – to provide some hope, to encourage others to dream,” she said.

She added: “I still love space and I am passionate about the importance of sending artists and writers to experience the overview effect. We need it. The first men to see the moon at close range – the Apollo 8 astronauts – called for poets in space. That still has never happened, but I hope that with the rapid advances in space technology, that the dream will happen.”

Elon Musk’s SpaceX named Maezawa, the colourful 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, launching on a Soyuz rocket.

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