They're the cheapest (probably) per kilogram; but if you're willing to settle for smaller payloads, you can get to orbit for quite a lot cheaper. For example, the European Vega will get you 2.5T to LEO for under $40M. Half your budget on launch costs isn't bad.

This article has some more details on their plans. Apparently they're looking to launch as a secondary payload on something like a falcon 9:

http://spacenews.com/japanese-lunar-exploration-company-ispa...

I'm not sure if launching as a secondary decreases costs. They do have two missions planned apparently, after which they hope to start generating revenue by carrying up to 30kg of customer payload to the moon per launch.

I would imagine the initial funding does not include the cost of the rocket. The risk of this effort is not in the trans-lunar stage. Reliable solutions for that can be purchased off the shelf. A seed-stage company needs to prove out the custom tech required for its own application, then if there's a business case what they're doing in the first place they can go raise additional funding at a higher valuation to cover the cost of launch. No reason to suffer many times more dilution on that now.

Short answer yes.

Slightly longer answer, space technology is really far behind. Look into the RD-180 and RD-170. You might be surprised that a lot of newer engine designs are only slight modifications of these. The 180 and 170 were also used for a long time. Engine design is a very costly process.

That launch cost is going to be the majority of the mission cost. I'm not familiar with Ispace's lander and vehicle, but you can build those for fairly cheap, in comparison. Since it looks like they are going for an X-Prize, I expect that they don't plan to stay there long. This means that they can get away with only slightly rad hardening devices. Sure, if there's a solar event, they are toast, but in their time window, that's just bad luck.

Somewhat related, EEVBlog has a few videos [1][2][3][4] on the Google Lunar X-Prize where he talks to a guy from Audi's team. He mentions there that they do not use space grade electronics. This is actually fairly common for nano sats (like Planet Labs). GEO is where you REALLY need things to last a long time and satellite prices skyrocket.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7NoK2fiUD4

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADJwChUtdDQ

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJLOZDPTp3I

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JwNmdV2QPs

They plan on being a secondary payload. Secondary payloads don't have to buy an entire rocket flight. As an example, SpaceIL (one of the other Xprize competitors) recently explained how they plan on getting to the Moon:

http://spacenews.com/spaceil-making-final-fundraising-push-f...

> "SpaceIL has a contract with Spaceflight Industries to launch the lander as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 mission whose primary payload is a commercial communications satellite. That satellite, which he declined to identify, will be deployed in a supersynchronous transfer orbit, whose apogee is above the altitude of geostationary orbit. The lander will then use its propulsion system to fly to the moon and land there."

The cost for being a secondary payload can be much cheaper than an entire rocket, and much cheaper than other smaller launch vehicles like Soyuz and Vega.

Spaceflight Industries acts as an intermediary layer between the launch providers and small customers. It arranges suitable rides, manages the hardware (for example cubesat dispensers).

It's the kind of useful growth niche that makes me think "why didn't I think of that?"

Depends a lot of how much mass you plan to land on the moon. Also depends on if you want 80% chance of success or 99% chance of success.

It costs roughly $4000/lb to LEO, and the rocket equation makes the whole thing pretty unforgiving with current tech.