Selected by ispace's engineers for its light weight and strength, titanium will be used for various mechanical parts in the HAKUTO-R lander and rover. As a lightweight, scratch- and corrosion-resistant material developed by Citizen for its watches, Citizen and ispace aim to use Super Titanium™ to improve the reliability and environmental resistance of the HAKUTO-R spacecraft's titanium parts.
Super Titanium is developed using Citizen's proprietary technology, called "Duratect", which uses special treatment techniques--including ion plating, cold plasma, gas hardening and duplex coating--to produce a titanium material that is 6x harder than stainless steel with excellent durability and abrasion-resistance, while maintaining the lightness of titanium. Through this partnership, Citizen will be procuring the pure titanium material, process it using the Duratect treatment technology, and apply it to the relevant HAKUTO-R lander and rover parts.
