Category: ASNARO


ASNARO Project Upate: Part I

Filed Under: ASNARO, NEC, Space on Demand, USEF by admin — コメントする
2011年6月30日

USERS SEM Deorbiting Pod

I was lucky enough recently to spend a day interviewing great people at METI, USEF, Pasco and NEC a little while back and managed to nail down many more details about what is happening with the ASNARO (Advanced Satellite with New system Architecture for Observation) project. For some Space News background on ASNARO, please see my original story. This time, specifically METI asked me to write about it for them, and gave tremendous help getting NEC and Pasco on board. It was just wonderful meeting people with ideas and strategies that are obviously well thought out.

Let’s get the disclaimer out of the way first.

From where we are standing, from the point of view of national security space, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if NEC succeeds in its strategy to turn the ASNARO/Nextar branded modular satellite platform into a commercial success in/for ASEAN countries. Of course it matters to NEC, because they are a private company and want to make more profit.

And of course it matters to me, because for the health of NEC and Japan’s military industrial base, it’s better that they sell or get more SE Asian nations to “buy” them through ODA and I wish them every luck.

But, at the end of the day, IF ASNARO/Sasuke/ Nextar never makes a successful commercial go of it, the Japanese government is still going to make sure the platform is built. And we predict that ASNARO will play its role in Japan’s emerging national space security infrastructure.

ASNARO is crucial to a number of players in a number of ways. After years of false starts and what may have been blind alleys — MDS-1 Tsubasa or OICETS Kirari spring to mind ;-) -

-Nextar represents what NEC has been trying to build since the late 90s (1998 if my memory serves me right, see NEC unveils prototype bus, aims for Teledesic, this being the non-Space News version) and the era of Hiroaki Shimayama and Takenori Yanase. Nextar, which looks suspiciously like a reworked OICETS/ MDS bus to me, and it’s the keystone of their pan-Asian commercial turnkey systems strategy.

We’ll go into this in Part II.  In Part III, we’ll look at the military angle, but only when the official article is published in Defense News.

So what is ASNARO?

ASNARO is a USEF powerplay to develop a bus system that on one hand will give NEC a chance to compeat in the ASEAN market for EO sats, and whether or not that succeeds, gives Japan the option to build a constellation of spysatellites, all kicked of with a tiny down-payment of 6 billion yen.

Therefore ASNARO is important to METI to show that its decades-long investment in creating standardized satelite bus systems and plug and play and COTs parts at USEF is finally paying off. Those of you  who have read In Defense of Japan know that we more or less regard USEF as METI’s DARPA, or military space arm, although USEF wouldn’t be comfortable with this description. Afterall, the technologies they develop are for peaceful purposes only. Right?

(I still vividly remember the change in body language when discussing with USEF how accurate USERS’s SEM -see image above- could be made).

Leaving aside the dual-use nature of many USEF projects, ANSARO is a vital component in what METI had been calling its Space on Demand (SOD) program, which, while it doesn’t actually use military language, leves very little to the imagination. Submarine launch, air launch (and with Epsilon) mobile launch! Reprogrammable satellites…”flexible” ground systems (we’ll get to that one in Part III).


Incidentally, the other main submarine space launch vehicle I know of  is the R-29R Vysota “Stingray” SLBM rebranded Volna and its peaceful brotherhood for lobbing payloads into LEO instead of  3x 300 kiloton-yield warheads at…wherever.

Behind this, ASNARO is a platform technology that also enables NEC to supply ISAS with SPRINT-series satellites, and could become a key part of Japan’s ODA strategy to counter China’s building influence in ASEAN. Hitherto, APRSAF has been a bit of a highly amicable talking shop. More about that in Part II.

Anyway, here is the Space News article with some of the bear-bones details. More to follow in Parts II and III.

Space News article by Paul Kallender-Umezu

ASNARO Delayed but far from Doomed!

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Alos/ Daichi Winks Off

Filed Under: ALOS, ASNARO, IGS, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2011年5月6日

So ALOS/Daichi, NEC’s prototype spy satellite, went AWOL late last month with undisclosed (as yet, to me) electric problems that may or may not be connected to ADEOS-I and -II, IGS and DRTS… I say no more.

Some might say it couldn’t have come at a worse time for Japan as Daichi was providing data on several hundred kilometers of devastated Pacific coastal Tohoku coastline and ALOS-2/ Daichi-2 won’t be launched for another two years or so, according to JAXA.

ALOS/Daichi at work...

Here is the quick brief I put up on Space News/ Spacenews.com on the day of the announcement, also below, with some commentary to follow.

ALOS/Daichi has always presented a bit of an enigma to me. Sources told me back in the 1990s that there were ideas to take the Panchromatic Remote-sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping (PRISM) sensor by NEC to much higher resolution- to around 1-meter-  but that this was seen as politically difficult at the time. Had Japan done it, it would have been accused of building a spy satellite under the guise of scientific research.

…So resolution was left at 2.5 meters so as not to be accused of being dual-use, but also to provide an intermediate step toward militarily useful resolution. At the same time, its relatively high data storage and transmission capability and stability were also also seen as crucial steps towards building spy satellites.

NEC, like Melco, had its own plans for an operable-LEO based spy satellite constellation based on its small-medium bus system that has an interesting place in Japan’s space history. In a story that made front page news in Space News- contained the claim that the bus was aimed at Teledesic no less. The guy who made the claim, Takenori Yanase,  was just on the edge of the massive defense padding scandal that landed him and Hiroaki Shimayama on the the front page of the newspapers and then jail. I can still remember the NEC flack ringing me up and laughing down the phone- “Hey Paul, your buddies are on the front page of the Nikkei!”

Oh..and then quel surprise!

Within 10 days of the August 31, 1998 Taepodon Trigger, Ichiro Taniguchi was up before the Cabinet briefing them on Melco’s own spy satellite plans- which…required fitting modified PRISM sensors on them to achieve, albeit rather blurrily as it turned out, sort-of 1-meter resolution. :-)

And so what happened to NEC’s small/medium bus technology development for “Earth observation” satellites? The answer is…. ASNARO!

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J-2/ Epsilon is Go!

Filed Under: ASNARO, Epsilon, H-2A, In Defense of Japan, Japan Nuclear Program, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, M-V, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2011年4月20日

The more I talk to Morita Sensei about the Epsilon, the more I am struck by how important it is to Japan’s strategic solid-fuel dual-use technology maintenance program. Those of you who know your rockets will know that the last two generations of ISAS sold LVs have been judged as readily convertible to ICBMS, and also the J-1, the last time Japan “mixed ‘n’ matched” technologies from its NASDA derived and ISAS derived programs.

But the Epsilon is very very different. Or is it? Where else other than in Japan could you develop a launch-on-demand rocket/ missile for $200 million? The Epsilon rocks! It is only an extreme budget squeeze that is stopping it from launching in its full configuration in 2013 right away. First of all, here is the article I recently wrote for Space News:

The technical changes being made to develop the Epsilon seem to have fully taken on board and learned from the mistakes made for the J-1 (featuring Tomifumi Godai, about whom I talk more about below), which, in one of my favorite articles for Space News in the 1990s, was “hammered” for its costs after a report by the Management and Coordination Agency showed that the J-1 development program cost more than similar projects in other countries. At the time I could see the mantra; Japan was trying to switch to genuinely be seen to cut costs from practically nothing to vapor, while underneath the J-1 was always mainly a technology development program to see if it could integrate an ICBM from its liquid and solid development programs. In terms of the cost per launch, the J-1 was really quite expensive. But in terms of technically showing how easy it is for Japan to produce ICBMs, the J-1 was quite a piece of work!

Here is the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States
Appendix III: Unclassified Working Papers assessment of the J-1: 

To jog your memory: the J-1 was a three-stage solid fuel rocket able to place payloads of about 1,000 kg int low Earth orbit and the first NASDA rocket to be made from a  combination of existing indigenous rockets – the solid rocket booster of the H-2 and the upper stage of the M-3S II. In other words, after an awfully long, twisting and tortured route down the J-1U -> J-2 -> GX route, which was basically IHI’s bid to become a liquid engine technology integration company, the Epsilon is the direct successor of the J-1. The Epsilon is what the J-1 should have been.

Does any of this, taken from the Japan Echo of 15 years ago, sound at all similar?

Information Bulletin No.64
First Launch of Cost-Efficient J-1 Rocket Scheduled for February 1996

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January 8,1996

The National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) is in the process of assembling a new domestically produced rocket, the J-1. Scheduled to be launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in February 1996, the J-1 features a cost-efficient design that incorporates parts of existing rockets. It will carry as its payload an experimental space vehicle that will gather data to be used in the development of a Japanese space shuttle, HOPE.
The mainstay of Japan’s space program is today the H-2, the first of which was successfully launched in 1994. The H-2, which can boost a two-ton satellite into geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometers above the equator, is a two-stage rocket fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. The J-1, on the other hand, is a three-stage rocket designed to place a satellite of about one ton in low orbit. It was jointly developed by NASDA and the Ministry of Education’s Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science with an eye to a likely increase in the demand for rockets to put into low orbit small telecommunications and other satellites.
To save on development and production costs, current plans call for the first J-1 to incorporate the type of solid-fuel rocket now being used by NASDA as boosters for the H-2; the second and third will use a combination of the M23 and M3B sold-fuel rockets that constitute the tip of ISAS’s M-3SII. The J-1, which stands 33 meters tall, measures 1.8 meters in diameter, and weighs 87 tons is rather small compared to the H-2-50 meters tall, 4 meters in diameter, 264 tons-but was developed for only one-ninth of the cost, or 3.1 billion.
The first J-1, scheduled to be launched on February 1, 1996, will carry as its payload the 1,050-kilogram HYFLEX …” [X-37B space bomber test... no no, only joking. It's nothing like the X-37B space bomber at all; here it is landing, right] “…a hypersonic flight experiment vehicle that will collect data for the development of a Japanese space shuttle, named HOPE. HYFLEX will separate from the J-1 at an altitude of 110 kilometers and glide back through the atmosphere. Scientists will be evaluating such points as HYFLEX’s heat-resistant properties as it reaches temperatures as high as 1500-1600 degrees Celsius and its stability and control systems as it hits speeds of up to Mach 15. After completing its glide, the HYFLEX will deploy a parachute and splash down in the ocean near the island of Ogasawara, where it will be retrieved by waiting ships.

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The wonderful thing about this article is that it shows what they Japanese call the 急 (Kyu) pichi (pitch) or the rapid assault on the higher strategic echelons of space development. It’s hard to believe going back to 1990s with the hubris and triumphalism;  with people like Tomifumi Godai, the godfather of the H-2, regaling Japan for its prowess in building better than the gaijin. The NYT article I linked to, unlike the screed put out these days, is actually worth reading! Godai’s pride in the H-2 was soon deflated though and his triumphalist series of articles in NASDA today in the 1990s has now disappeared from web and written out of history. But I remember.

It’s worth reminding people, I feel, that with a little bit more money, Japan would have had its own automated shuttle by now. It’s not doing too badly as it is with Kounotori, which is itself a technical triumph and a bargain- costing only $200 million or so to develop (officially).

But, literally, Japan lost Hope.  In caffeinated and wilder-eyed moments I often wonder how much pressure was put on Japan to sacrifice its space program on the altar of fiscal restraint when other much more wasteful spending programs survived. (I often marvel at how quickly SmartSat disappeared too…did someone in the U.S. embassy  gently whisper sweet somethings  in NICT’s ear so as not to show up the U.S. or frighten the Chinese too much?)

There is no question that the Epsilon is a highly aggressive dual-use ICBM program that actually will fulfill three functions;

a) It’s stated purpose- to provide a low-cost, highly flexible alternative to the H-2A/B for Japan’s microsatellite and science community and ASNARO/ ODA-programs

b) A fast-flexible mobile launcher for military micro/nano/pico satellites at times of increased tension or the buildup or waging of war. In fact the SPRINT series in itself does a nice job building up a standard bus system for modular payloads, which will make them highly versatile for applications starting with medium resolution/ tactical spy satellites aka ASNARO. The SPRINT-A flight is in fact a test launch for upcoming deals with Vietnam and Cambodia to supply satellites as ODA (and to keep them out of China’s orbit- again literally!)

c) A family of boosters for said purposes (a) and (b) and also as an ICBM design for if/when Japan decide to weaponsize its supergrade / plutonium stocks.

I have also put the first article I published on the Epsilon, which was originally called the ASR here, FYI:

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Moving Beyond A Zero-Sum Military Space Game

Filed Under: ASNARO, Epsilon, IGS, In Defense of Japan, Japan ASAT, Japan BMD, Japan Spysats, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, M-V, Michibiki, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2011年2月14日

I  just filed a Military Space Special for Space News last week and am giving an update here. What I have done is to copy an early version of the story below (which has a few more details than the SN version) and some comments and background.

Basically, I recently conducted a sit-down with three director-level MoD personnel who did a good job of convincing me that the MoD is very interested in military space development but feels its hands are tied  as long as it continues to face a zero-sum budget game. I stress that this was not said to me directly by the MoD who stressed that the MoD’s budget has held up despite huge pressures on the DPJ to cut due to fiscal pressures.

After talking to industry, however, there is very deep dissatisfaction with the slow pace of movement. Nobody is saying that the DPJ has reneged on the commitments made by the Basic Space Law, but it does appear that military space is drifting in neutral until budget is found. Nobody is being blamed. However, it is clear that the leadership, clear command and budget lines that were supposed to have been introduced by now, are absent.

Until the SHSP or the new Space Agency materializes and budget according to the 「ニーズに対応した５年間の衛星等の開発利用計画（１０年程度を視野（案)」as promoted by the Basic Space Law, no specific budget lines can be drawn up for the MoD, or by the MoD, and this seems to be the single biggest factor stopping more concrete progress.

1. Japan is forging ahead with IGS

In an interview with the CSIC, the one sure bet is that Japan will continue plowing money into  IGS. It’s a bit of a Melco money pit, this one, by very efficient Japanese standards, and the system has been plagued by troubles. The first generation optical satellites that have not been performing to spec- let’s hope they could at least resolve buildings, and the radar satellites have been winking off with that old bane of Melco satellites- electrical problems. (Please bear in mind, thought, that compared to spiraling procurement costs of many U.S. military procurement programs, the IGS emerges as freshly laundered as a blouse in a soap suds TV commercial!)

Anyway, hopefully these issues can be ironed out. The new generation of optical satellites should function at 60cm resolution and the new test optical satellite going up next year should be another big leap forward, given that GeoEye-2,  has a planned resolution of 25 cm  (9.8 in) it would be surprising if NEC and Goodrich couldn’t get at least half way to that. Afterall, ASNARO is looking at 50 cm or so. Given that NEC’s Daichi/ALOS satellite is the basis for the optical system for IGS, and NEC is integrating ASNARO, you can draw your own conclusions about the clarity of IGS’s future vision.

Here is the opening of the story:

Japan’s reconnaissance program continues to burgeon while military space program faces a series of difficult choices, according to a series of interviews with officials in the Prime Ministers Cabinet Office and Ministry of Defense (MOD).

Japan’s Information Gathering Satellite program, known as IGS, will see the launch launching of 10 satellites by 2018, including an extra radar satellite, an official at the Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center (CSIC) said February 7.

One optical and one radar satellite will be launched fiscal 2011 and a radar satellite and a technology test satellite for future higher-capability optical satellites in fiscal 2012; fiscal 2014 will see the launch of a further optical satellite and an “extra” radar satellite. A further optical and radar satellite will be launched in fiscal 2016, and the CSIC is now planning to request the launch of a radar satellite in 2017, “assuming we get the budget to do so,” the official said. Japan’s fiscal year runs April through March.

IGS is designed to function as a fleet of two radar and two optical satellites, but the November 2003 destruction of an H-2A rocket and IGS-2A and 2B and the early failures of two radar satellites (IGS-1B) in  March 2007  and IGS-4A in August 2010 have left fleet with only two operational satellites.

As a hedge against future service interruption, Japan decided in October to launch an extra radar satellite and boost CISC’s budget to cover the satellite’s development costs, the official said.

“Yes, we have enough budget to include the extra satellite, although at the moment the plan is continue to maintain a basic four satellite system for the foreseeable future,” the official said.

2. MoD is Pushing Out Development Budgets for Military Space Programs Until 2015 or So

Here is part 2 of the original story:

Japan’s Ministry of Defense, meanwhile, is taking a cautious approach to space acquisition, weighing its needs against what it can afford, according to officials who spoke to Space News on condition of anonymity.

The Ministry of Defense was formally barred from building space systems until 2008 when Japan’s Basic Space Law overrode a 1969 resolution committing Japan to use space exclusively for peaceful purposes.

In addition to making space programs fair game for the Ministry of Defense, the Basic Space Law called for restructuring control of Japan’s space-development budgets and programs away from competing ministries and into a single cabinet-level agency. The 2008 law also called for Japan to double its space spending between 2010 and 2020 and to pursue programs that contribute to its national security.

In response to this direction, the Ministry of Defense in 2009 released a report detailing a long list of space programs it might be interested in developing.

Commentary: According to the MoD’s Basic Guidelines for Space Development and Use of Space of January 15, 2009 by the Committee on Promotion of Space Development and Use, Ministry of Defense of Japan the MoD would look into just about everything except throwing Auntie Maud’s old boot stuffed with a bag o’nails up in orbit, including- more and better spy satellites, space-based early warning for BMD, a dedicated communications satellite, a SIGINT satellite (no doubt using ETS-8), Space Situational Awareness capabilities (seat belts and rear view mirrors?), microsatellites (ahem) satellite protection (wow- defensive counterspace already!) a dedicated LV (Epsilon, or I’ll eat my hat) and QZSS for, well, I’ll bet you can hazard a very, very accurate guess….

Kiku-8: Listening in on the Neighbors Soon? Perhaps not!

However, the Japan’s latest National Defense Program Guidelines – a planning document produced every five years — is much less specific. The document, approved by the Security Council in December, focuses on the ministry’s role in developing military space programs aimed at bolstering the nation’s space-based surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.

For now, officials said, the Ministry of Defense is researching when and if to develop a series of capabilities, including its own space-based early warning system, a signals intelligence satellite, a communications satellite, reconnaissance satellites and experimental microsatellites. But with so many decisions to be thought through, these officials said, the ministry will hold off on starting any development programs until 2016, when the next five-year Defense Program Guidelines is due.

For example, the Ministry of Defense is questioning whether it can afford and really needs a space-based infrared missile warning satellite for its fleet of Aegis cruisers and Patriot missile batteries, according to one official.

“When we consider a cost-benefit analysis [of a space-based early warning system] we should consider the U.S.-Japan relationship,” the official said Feb. 8. “We get enough data from the U.S., so we should find out exactly what new capabilities we could get from our own satellite. If we can get appreciable benefit and if we think it is affordable, then we can consider development.”

Part of the issue for the defense ministry’s conservatism is concern about future budgets, said Satoshi Tsuzukibashi, director of the Office of Defense Production at the Japan Business Federation.

Thirty months after enactment of the Basic Space Law, Japan has yet to form a new agency to coordinate national space programs and the sought after budget increased have yet to materialize. “The most difficult problem is budget. If there is a specific budget provided for the [Ministry of Defense], the [ministry] will move ahead and promote its space programs without troubling its commitments to land, air and marine forces,” Tsuzukibashi said Feb. 9.

Commentary: MoD is playing a waiting game: here are the major points I gleaned that are publishable

Even Stage I (2013-17) Epsilon will be the Best Solid Rocket in History

1. Communications: Current transponders on Superbirds, B2, D and C  are facing end-of life issues as satellites are retiring. Building a dedicated communications satellite is still under cost-benefit analysis

2. Sigint: This really got the MoD cautious. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions. However, preliminary studies are looking into the feasibility and need for this and the possibility of Japan using a satellite is under study and not ruled out.

3. ASNARO: MoD will consider it IF it works. That’s as far as they would go. ASNARO seems sure to get money for ODA for at least Vietnam and maybe Cambodia. I’m still optimistic that this dual use technology will prove alluring for MoD. At least its a hedge.

4. No surprise here: MoD likes Epsilon. And who couldn’t. It’s great! Even Stage I (2013 Phase 1) Epsilon will be the best solid rocket ever made and for only $200 million. Prof. Yasuhiro Morita is such a genius! Just wait till Phase II is out.

5. SM3 Block IIA is on target and on course, and I believe it’s Japan’s involvement that is helping this to happen. It seems to me to be no accident that the the most successful element in BMD is the part where Japanese companies are supplying the cutting edge components. Bloody hell, the version out now can knock out satellites, functioning as a direct ascent ASAT, just with a software shuffle. I can’t imagine how scared Japan’s neighbors are when they realize just how far they are behind!

6. MoD continues to study microsatellites, what kind of satellites and their potential applications, and that is all that it will say right now. On the other hand the sterling work being up and down Japan in UNISEC and related laboratories, and the plethora of dual use technologies being developed, as well as the guaranteed budget  for Japan’s micro/nano/picosatellite development programs means that the MoD is sitting on a goldmine of talent and experience here. Purely accidentally, of course.

It’s time for the SHSP to show us the money ;-)

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Japan Space Budget up 3%: Focus on Milspace Supported

Filed Under: ASNARO, Early Warning, Epsilon, IGS, Japan BMD, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program by admin — コメントする
2011年1月14日

Japan’s general activities space budget will see a 3.0% rise to  309.9 billion yen (US$3.75 billion) for the fiscal year starting April 1, 2011 over the prior  year, according to figures released by the Strategic Headquarters for Space Policy (SHSP), January 14.

The Ministry of Education Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) is to receive a budget of 177 billion yen, up 18 billion yen for the current year, with substantial rises in budgets a number for the development of a number of high profile programs, said Keichi Tabuchi, Unit Chief, Office for Space Untilization Promotion, MEXT, January 14.

Main budget increases are for the the Hayabusa-2 asteroid sample return mission; the GCOM-W water circulation observation satellite; the ALOS-2 earth resources and disaster observation satellite; the Epsilon fast-launch solid-fueled medium launch vehicle; the ASTRO-H X-ray astronomical satellite; and the Bepi Colombo Mercury probe.

Other programs that will receive significant budget increases include the IGS fleet of reconnaissance satellites by the Prime Ministers Cabinet Office,  the development of ballistic missile early warning sensor technology by the Ministry of Defense, and the ASNARO small-bus, high-resolution observation satellite development program that is being funded by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, according to SHSP figures below in the graphic:

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DPJ cut METI’s air-launch and hyperspectral sensor R&D programs

Filed Under: ASNARO, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program, METI, USEF by admin — コメントする
2011年1月6日
Bearing in mind the digital washing away of so many past sins on the NASDA and other web sites from 10 years ago, this entry printed below is the original version of:

Quis custodiet ipsos database administrators?

It’s a major lesson and one that I keep on having to convince my wife of, but an important one: create a paper trail and never throw away your notes. That’s because digital history is being continually rewritten.

Having been convinced that the new administration would leave most of the major militarization budget request for Japan’s space development intact, largely for the reason that the DPJ offered strong if conditional support for the Basic Space Law, I haven’t bothered to follow up on the actual budget for H.22

Interestingly though, both the 代地球観測センサ等の研究開発 (high-res hyper spectral EO sensor) and the 次世代型輸送ミッションインテグレーション基盤技術研究開発 (Pegasus-like air launch and SLBM R&D) requests had “disappeared” from the 平成２２年度　概算要求. This means that the original 予算要求 has been wiped from history.

My take is that these programs were seen as either far too aggressive, or outside of METI’s mandate.

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Hayabusa-2 and Epsilon are Go

Filed Under: ASNARO, Epsilon, hayabusa-2 by admin — コメントする
2010年8月16日





Technical Committee OKs Hayabusa-2 Development, Epsilon Launch in 2013

Not quite as exciting as Thunderbirds are Go but actually very important strategic news for Japan’s space program as Japan’s Space Activities Commission (SAC) recommended the development of the Hayabusa-2 asteroid sample return mission after a key SAC evaluation committee approved of the technical development and mission goals of the project in a report published August 5.

— The following is from something I filed at Space News a little while back. It’s highly significant because we are back where we started as SAC has returned as the de facto regulatory committee with the clout to justify MEXT’s spending programs.

In the 33-page report, the technical subcommittee, which has met three times since July 16, 2010, recommended that Hayabusa-2 be developed and launched before the end of March 2015 In outlining the mission’s goals, the draft report said Hayabusa-2 should visit, land on, deploy a miniature rover on and collect and return a sample of a C-class asteroid, which is considered to contain organic materials that can give clues to the formation of the solar system.

The report’s findings mean that SAC, which has oversight over the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), will August 11 formally recommend development of the new probe as part of its review of JAXA’s space programs, according to Hiroko Takuma, deputy Director of the Space and Aeronautics Policy Division at the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, in an August 5 interview.

Japan’s space budget request is submitted to the Finance Ministry at the end of each August and ratified by Japan’s Diet each following March in time for the fiscal year starting April 1. The budget for Hayabusa-2 is projected to be about 16.4 billion yen (US$190 million), excluding the launch cost of the H-2A, Takuma said.

Hayabusa-2 will be the follow-on mission for the Hayabusa (Falcon) mission, which was the fist space probe to successfully complete a round-trip to an asteroid when it to Earth in June 2010 following an 85-month journey in which it visited and collected dust particles from the near-Earth object 25143 Itokawa.

In a separate report, the same technical subcommittee also recommended development of the next-generation Epsilon solid-rocket that is the successor to the M-V. The 24 meter tall Epsilon, which is being designed by JAXA, is based on the SRB-A solid augment booster used by the H-2A, and will be capable of lifting 1,200 kg into low-Earth orbit at a target cost of 3.8 billion yen per launch, about half the cost of the M-V, according to the subcommittee report.

Following the draft report, SAC will also approve development of the Epsilon rocket on August 11, said Takuma.

- Initial Commentary:
Japan space watchers will already know how critical Epsilon is to not only Japan’s critical need of a small launcher following the GX debacle, but also to MEXT’s SOD initiative (Japan’s ORS) and the ASNARO/ Sasuke programs for Japan’s dual use military space infrastructure.

Epsilon is basically an updated version of the original J-1 missile development program of the early 90s, using exactly the same solid booster technology supplemented by Mu-V know-how. The irony about this ORS/ballistic missile technology demonstrator program is that it actually goes some way to hitting the original objectives as laid out by the STA for this program back in 1997!!

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New Growth Strategy? We’ll See…. PART I

Filed Under: ASNARO, In Defense of Japan, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program by admin — コメントする
2010年5月31日
…a case of growing, growing…gone.
On May 25, the SHSP (Strategic Headquarters for Space Policy) released its 12-page report “Promotion Strategy for Space Policy for National Growth: Space Sector Focus,” (my translation
of（案）宇宙分野における重点施策について ～ 我が国の成長をもたらす戦略的宇宙政策の推進 ～) to the almost complete silence of the media, except for a hilariously inaccurate Gomiuri Shimbun article on the subject.

In the plan, the SHSP writes that Japan should double the scale of the nation’s space industry from the SHSP’s current estimate of 7 trillion yen accumulated value to a 14-15 trillion yen (US$164.4 billion) value in the next 10 years.

If this sounds rather ambitious, it is. What gives the report a patina of legitimacy is that the SHSP is nominally chaired by Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Adding to the report’s superficial credibility is the fact that it repeats roughly 90% of the June 2008 Fundamental Space Law in calling for moves to stimulate both domestic demand and promote international cooperation and overseas commercial sales and boost the participation of the private sector.

In slightly more detail: The report recommends that Japan focus budget on developing standardized technology to build a fleet of high-performance and low cost small Earth observation, disaster monitoring and communication satellites for domestic use and that Overseas Development Assistance and other government foreign aid funding mechanisms be used to sell these systems and related services to developing countries.

Funds should also be invested in the development of a small rocket and for small and medium-sized enterprises to boost their participation in the space industry to accelerate development of low-cost components and systems.

In other words, the GOJ, according to the “Promotion Strategy” is going to copy Chinese diplomacy and bribe governments of developing countries into buying Japanese, or at least set up some quid pro quos and who knows what other blandishments for the local authorities to grease the purchases of NEC Asnaro/Sasuke satellites and the ASR/Epsilon.

I’ve heard that SJAC and Keidanren have been dutifully schlepping all around South East Asia trying to get people interested in the package. Much as they did in the late 1990s trying to get people interested in NEC’s small bus satellite, without success.

One of the major themes of In Defense of Japan is that the failure to commercialize Japan’s space technology is one of the major reasons why Japan is militarizing space. What we don’t say is the the flip side of this is that, ho-hum, tsk, drat, darn…but, gosh!, Japan’s commercial space business has always been fatally crippled by a lack of funding at crucial stages.

It’s almost as if the GOJ wanted to carefully nurture the key technologies for space development, which are all dual-use and strategic, but wanted to avoid trade and diplomatic conflicts with the U.S. by actually making inroads into the international commercial market, which is dominated by U.S. weapons makers, who also own huge swathes of the U.S. media and the Congress and Senate.

So, the government pays for Japanese companies to develop top-class strategic technologies, then suddenly turns off the investment spigot just at the point when cash was needed to invest to make the technologies commercially competitive.

In NEC’s case, the small bus turned out to be Asnaro. I heard that NEC hasn’t had much success in convincing SE Asian nations that they should buy into an 8-satellite constellation of high resolution “disaster monitoring” satellites. Ho-hum, if they don’t, then, well, what to do. It just so happens that plans already exist for just such a constellation under the Fundamental Space Law, which is to be a military spy satellite network. Mmm, sounds a little bit like “From the Market to the Military in Japanese Space Policy” to me folks. Didn’t I read that somewhere before?

….but what about the context of this report?

The report is part of the “New Growth Strategy” announced by the Democratic Party of Japan in December 2009. The said “strategy” aims to grow the nation’s economy an average 3% each year through 2020 by boosting demand and creating 4.76 million new jobs. The finalized version of the national strategy, of which report is part, is due to be completed by the end of June.

I’m not exactly the first to be skeptical about the New Growth Strategy, and I won’t be the last. The DPJ’s desultory dance to disaster over the last few weeks inspires no confidence that the New Growth Strategy is not worth the paper it will be written on.
But let’s turn to the case for space…

So hold on here….12 pages? Isn’t that a little lean for a major strategic area covering a ten-year time span that involves, by my rule of thumb, doubling both the official Space Activities Budget and all the other money that’s invested via different budget lines that you haven’t heard about? You know, if I was going to ask for $40 or $50 billion dollars from the taxpayers, I would at least try to put together some detailed spen…I mean investment plans….

…or maybe not. Didn’t President Obama give Wall Street cart blanche a little way back with a two-page fax basically saying “fill in the number of billions of taxpayers money you want us to throw in your grubby trough and return….” ?

The fact is that the “Promotion Strategy” actually contains NO detailed budget requests, no annual development planning, no step-by-step or staged implementation summary AT ALL. So given the fact that the annual government budget request has to be completed and shoved off to the MOF by the last week of August, isn’t the SHSP cutting things a little fine?

The paltry “Promotion Strategy” put together by the SHSP is, in fact, growing nowhere. Without any detailed budgetary proposals, it’s administratively dead meat. There are no teeth in the cogs- no specific spending proposals in the paper, and no prospect of any emerging, IMO, in the next six weeks. Spinning wheels indeed.

Considering that the SHSP has had SIX Months to draw this up, you might be within your rights to ask, what’s going on?

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Quis custodiet ipsos database administrators?

Filed Under: ASNARO, Japan Spysats, METI, USEF, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2010年2月7日

Both the 代地球観測センサ等の研究開発 (high-res hyperspectral EO sensor) and the 次世代型輸送ミッションインテグレーション基盤技術研究開発 (Pegasus-like airlaunch and SLBM R&D development) requests of the original August 31 平成２２年度概算要求 have been wiped from the Kantei’s website, and hence both these IMO highly aggressive p rograms have been “wiped” from history.

Luckily I kept paper copies of the originals. But it has allowed a lot of face-saving on all sides. METI can claim it got everything that it wanted because the requests were wiped from the October 31 version. But ASNARO is in the bag, and whether or not it succeeds in becoming a commercial success, it will be a valuable addition to Japan’s spysat capabilities.

The big lesson here is to keep paper copies. If I hadn’t actually had the physical evidence, it would have been so much harder not to question a person who said that a development budget for these two highly ambitious programs was not actually requested. It was, under the LDP era, but things changed with the DPJ getting in.

So what impact has the DPJ really had, and how much impact can it really have? That’s something for the next installment- Demise of the GX!
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