biology

Hakuto

Hakuto is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hakuto rather than just read about it. In short: Hakuto (ハクト) or formerly White Label Space (ホワイトレーベルスペース) was a team formed in early 2008 by a group of experienced space professionals inspired by the challenge of the Google Lunar X PRIZE to develop a robotic Moon exploration mission. Hakuto was named after the white rabbit in Japanese mythology.

Key takeaways

Hakuto belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hakuto to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hakuto from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hakuto (ハクト) or formerly White Label Space (ホワイトレーベルスペース) was a team formed in early 2008 by a group of experienced space professionals inspired by the challenge of the Google Lunar X PRIZE to develop a robotic Moon exploration mission. Hakuto was named after the white rabbit in Japanese mythology. The team's original plan was to finance its lunar mission from advertising expenditure of large global companies and the team eventually succeeded in attracting sponsorship from multiple large brands, particularly in Japan. The team went through a number of phases of its organisation and plans. Initially the team was primarily a European effort and led in the Netherlands. Later the team changed management and was led in Japan. At different stages of the competition the team had partnerships with two other teams (Astrobotic and then Team Indus) for the delivery of its lunar rover to the Moon's surface. Although the competition ended without any team launching their mission, the Hakuto team became a company, struck partnerships, working agreements and became ispace.

History In 2008, White Label Space was founded in the Netherlands. In 2009, the team registered with the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP). The business plan of White Label Space aimed to make a new type of space technology company that was both attractive to sponsors and also technically strong. Throughout the period 2008 till 2010 the team established partnerships with a number of organisations, mostly in Europe, and White Label Space continued to publish its early progress on the developments of the lunar mission. On September 10, 2010 Japan-based members of the team established White Label Space Japan LLC, a Limited Liability Company registered in Japan. On June 11, 2012, it was decided to name unit 2 Rover prototype (PM-2) "White Rabbit" (written in hiragana as「はくと」, which is pronounced "Hakuto"). On January 30, 2013, the European team members had ceased substantial involvement and the Japan-based members decided to continue the work, establishing a new parent company called ispace Inc. The change included a change of leadership from Steve Allen to co-founder Takeshi Hakamada. Around that time the team also announced the lead engineer as Kazuya Yoshida, a professor of aerospace engineering at Tohoku University in Japan. On July 15, 2013 the team publicly announced the change the official team name to Hakuto (「ハクト」). On December 4, 2013, the team successfully crowd-funded the development of unit 3 Rover prototype (PM-3). On February 19, 2014, Hakuto was selected in the Milestone Prizes as one of five teams competing in the mobility subsystem section. By 2014, carrying through on the initial vision of the White Label Space team, the Hakuto team had succeeded in obtaining sponsorship from a number of major Japanese brands for its lunar mission. Following on from the cessation of the GLXP the leader of the Hakuto GLXP team, ispace Inc., retained the support of KDDI, JAL and Suzuki, and proceeded to build further corporate partnerships as well as raising large amounts of venture capital funding directed towards an expanded lunar mission program. The Sorato rover was donated to the US National Air and Space Museum in October 2019.

Lunar mission plans

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hakuto

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hakuto claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hakuto before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hakuto ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hakuto

In research: Hakuto appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hakuto in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hakuto is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cancelled missions to the Moon, Google Lunar X Prize, Ispace Inc., so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hakuto outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hakuto in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hakuto means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hakuto out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hakuto in simple terms?

Why does Hakuto matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hakuto?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hakuto.