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.
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