posted 12-23-2022 10:52 AM               

Japanese Daruma dolls and spaceflight

Japanese Daruma dolls are considered symbols of perseverance and luck. Modeled after Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen tradition of Buddhism, tradition says you visualise your goal, paint one eye on to the doll (generally the right eye) and then once the goal has been reached, paint the other eye on.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) gifted Daruma dolls to Kathryn Lueders, associate administrator for NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate, and Jim Free, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, as a token of good luck prior to the Artemis I launch.

On Dec. 20, 2022, Lueders and launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson marked the successful end to the Artemis I mission by coloring in the other eye of the Daruma doll in Firing Room 1 of the Rocco A. Petrone Launch Control Center at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Free filled in his eye on Dec. 11, 2022, with Artemis I ascent and entry flight director Judd Frieling in the Mission Control Center at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

This is not the first time Daruma dolls have made an appearance in spaceflight activities. In 2014, a daruma doll was seen amongst the launch team for NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory. The joined NASA-JAXA GPM mission was launched from Japan on an an H-IIA rocket.

Astronaut Koichi Wakata also flew a daruma doll aboard space shuttle Endeavour during the STS-72 mission in 1996. The doll was photographed floating alongside Wakata and models of the shuttle and the Japanese Space Flyer Unit (SFU).

posted 12-23-2022 12:11 PM               

Daruma, a traditional Japanese lucky charm.

Engineers at ispace put eyes on Daruma dolls to mark milestones.

This golden daruma had the first eye at the beginning of the lander's environmental testing and the second at the completion.

Other daruma will have eyes after launch.