Japanese lunar exploration company ispace said it plans to establish a new subsidiary in Saudi Arabia, expanding its global presence and strengthening ties with partners in the Middle East as activity around the Moon accelerates.<\/p>\n
The planned entity, to be known as ispace Saudi Arabia, will become the company\u2019s fourth global base after Japan, Europe and the United States. The announcement was made in Riyadh on Jan. 11, 2026, on the sidelines of the Saudi\u2013Japan Ministerial Investment Forum.<\/p>\n
ispace said it has obtained an Investment Registration Certificate from Saudi Arabia\u2019s Ministry of Investment and is completing commercial registration with the Ministry of Commerce. The company said the move reflects a long-term commitment to working with Saudi commercial, academic and institutional partners as the Kingdom expands its role in space.<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia has stepped up investment in space technologies through initiatives such as the Public Investment Fund-backed NEO Space Group and programs led by the Saudi Space Agency. ispace said its Saudi subsidiary will draw on the company\u2019s lunar mission experience to support technology development, future lunar missions and local capability building aligned with national priorities.<\/p>\n
The Saudi entity is expected to focus on industrial and academic collaboration in areas including lunar surface exploration technologies, mission operations and in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU). These efforts will be supported by ispace\u2019s European team in Luxembourg, which specialises in surface systems and resource utilisation concepts.<\/p>\n
The announcement builds on existing relationships in the Kingdom. In 2025, ispace signed a memorandum of understanding with King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, followed by another MoU in January 2026 with a leading Saudi science and technology organisation, both aimed at cooperation on lunar missions, technology development and workforce training.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe establishment of ispace Saudi Arabia will allow us to engage more directly with our Saudi partners, accelerate joint projects and support capability development in lunar exploration within the Kingdom,\u201d ispace founder and chief executive Takeshi Hakamada said. He added that the company aims to support Saudi Arabia\u2019s Vision 2030 goals while contributing to the growth of the country\u2019s space economy.<\/p>\n
The formation of the Saudi subsidiary was announced as part of a broader Japanese industry delegation attending the Saudi\u2013Japan Ministerial Investment Forum, led by Saudi Minister of Investment Khalid A. Al-Falih and Japan\u2019s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ryosei Akazawa. The forum underscored bilateral interest in deeper cooperation across space, innovation and advanced technologies.<\/p>\n
For ispace, the move positions the company closer to emerging lunar stakeholders in the Middle East at a time when national space programs are increasingly looking beyond Earth orbit toward sustained lunar activity and international partnerships.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Japanese lunar exploration company ispace said it plans to establish a new subsidiary in Saudi Arabia, expanding its global presence and strengthening ties with partners in the Middle East as activity around the Moon accelerates. The planned entity, to be known as ispace Saudi Arabia, will become the company\u2019s fourth global base after Japan, Europe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[357,572,6275,7286,7287,4567,7288,5739,7289],"class_list":["post-20748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ispace","tag-lunar-exploration","tag-middle-east","tag-ministry-of-investment-saudi-arabia","tag-riyadh","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-saudi-space-agency","tag-space-technology","tag-takeshi-hakamada"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20748"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}