Category: Japan space development


SHSP Decision on New Space Agency Delayed a Month

Filed Under: Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program, Michibiki, QZSS, SHSP, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2011年8月10日

The decision on the shape of the new space agency (origially called the 宇宙庁) in the original Matsui Plan has been stalled again by last-minute haggling as MEXT mounts a last-ditch battle to stop ceeding budget and programmatic authority to the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office, according to Takafumi Matsui, architect of the plan, in an interview yesterday (Tuesday August 9). It was quite spooky to interview Matsui Sensei in the offices of the IIPS in Toranomon knowing that a major bureaucratic battle between MEXT, METI and the CO was taking place a scant 500 meters or so away in Kasumigaseki proper- a battle completely ignored by the mainstream press but covered in Japan’s gutsy shukanzasshi (weeklies).

As I pointed out last week in How will the SHSP’s Next-Gen Space Plan Unfold? August 8 was supposed to be Change You Can Believe In day when the SHSP was to finalize the transfer of power of authority of the QZSS system development to the CO along with the budgetary powers to complete it, largely at the expense of MEXT. According to Matsui Sensei, MEXT is going down fighting and it is unclear whether the deal will go through.

As I pointed out last time,   June 30′s  政府の宇宙開発利用体制の在り方について(案) represents a compromise- originally the 宇宙庁 was to have complete control of space policy and budget, but according to Matsui Sensei, it represents a stealth-step in the right direction. If the plan works, then the CO will have seized control of Japan’s largest ever space infrastructure project, involving the building of a 7 or 8 satellite constellation of Michibiki satellites that will provide sub-1 meter positioning and emergency communications and as yet undisclosed (to be worked out- nothing sinister) functions.

For those of you familiar with the QZSS project, the CO taking charge is both a practical solution and a master stroke all at once, removing the in-fighting that has plagued the project for the best part of a decade and firmly putting the CO in charge of space national security and public infrastructure.

Meanwhile the General Space Activities budget is due for a savage beating, with the DPJ trying to enforce a 30% cut in some science and technology fighting. The Basic Plan for Space Policy of June 2009- take a look at page 8,  looks to have been reduced to administrative 瓦礫　(gareki= rubble).

To see how things pan out, watch this space!

 

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How will the SHSP’s Next-Gen Space Plan Unfold?

Filed Under: Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program, SHSP, Seiji Maehara, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2011年8月6日

Monday is the day when the the Strategic Headquarters for Space Policy (SHSP) is due to release its report on which part of the government is going to lead Japan’s space policy and budgeting. The decisions announced Monday, more than a year later than intended and the result of a 30-month bureaubattle between MEXT and the Cabinet Office and METI, will give important clues as to how successful MEXT’s rearguard action to save its programmatic and budget control against encroachment by the CO and METI has been.

Despite bitter complaints about stacked committees and placements (oh it pains me not to write about them) showing that Japanese bureaucratic battles can be just as downright dirty and corrupt as a Brooklyn Ward (or British Borough) election, MEXT would seem to have done pretty well out of it so far. Remember, back in 2008 the Basic Law’s key point was to, within 2 years, have the SHSP design a Cabinet-led 宇宙庁 (Space Agency) focused on promoting the use of space for national security, applications and industrialization- all anathema to MEXT, which has maintained control of around 60% of the entire space budget through its control of the R&D oriented JAXA.

With an attitude similar to that of Charlton Heston at the NRA, or perhaps, more like that of Jim Hacker defending the great British Sausage, in an astonishing achievement revelead in June 30′s 政府の宇宙開発利用体制の在り方について(案) 平成23年6月30日 MEXT has managed to whittle down the SHSP’s proposal to taking about 30% of its budget.

Why astonishing? Well the whole point of the Basic Space Law (宇宙基本法（骨子) was to rip the power away from MEXT in the first place (see several dozen of my articles in Space News down the years), in particular, fight the 今後の宇宙政策の在り方に関する 有識者会議 提言書 put together by Matsui Sensei, which de facto proposed a revolution in space organization, and did so in only 5 pages. Can you imagine something so beautifully clear and direct as to delineate a major Japanese governmental powerbroking revolution in ONLY FIVE PAGES?

No wonder it wasn’t popular! Here is the original article I wrote about the Matsui initiative, arranged by Seiji Maehara to put the cat among the pigeons. We’ll see how things pan out on Monday.

The Matsui Report was not popular with MEXT but popular with METI...

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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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Interview with former Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura

Filed Under: In Defense of Japan, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2011年4月19日

This was one of the more important interviews I had back in the day when I was working on getting Stanford University to try to understand the scale of the changes that were occurring in Japan’s strategic thinking in terms of beginning to show deployment of Japan’s dual-use technologies- when some of the recessed hedge thinking started edging toward…

…let’s put it a different way:- and the dual-use aspect of Japan’s space development strategy started becoming the subject of polite conversation.

Basically the story is that I’d realized it had been on the cards ever since the 1998 “Taepodon flyover,” which Saadia and I call the Taepondon Trigger, when Melco handed me the pre-prepared plans for what were going to become the IGS. Funny, that, wasn’t it?

However, when I pitched to Saadia back in 2003 back in the Okura Hotel’s breakfast bar that Japan was going to militarize its space development, there was concern from her that I was going to go too far too quickly. And our first version of the book in 2005 that predicted what was going to happen (I was about 95% right, if you could put a figure on it, as it turned out) was dismissed out of hand first time round because it didn’t fit the frame. But all I was doing was applying Dick Samuel’s scholarship from beyond the aerospace sector to the space…

First meeting Takeo Kawamura in 2006 was a vital step in plugging into the fundamental changes occurring with the Kawamura Initiative (IDOJ, pp.38) that we documented in In Defense of Japan. Basically I’d gotten a heads up from Kazuto Suzuki, who played a vital role in promoting and drafting one of the key strategic changes in Japan’s normalization, the Basic Law.

Takeo Kawamura is one of those great people that you get to meet in your life who  care about what it means and will take the extra step to put it out. I was there to put the message out to an international audience that someone cared, and he did, and I did, and that was enough. It was a sort of Homer Simpson d’oh moment that started it all.

I remember back in Feb 2004 during one of my many private audiences with Mazakasu Iguchi when he’d told me…you know, they thought they’d checked everything, right down to the last bolt…they’d cleaned out MHI at Nagoya and they were now pristine clean and ready…but Nissan, they’d forgot Nissan. The bloody solid boosters. I can still remember Iguchi Sensei thumping his desk in exasperation.

It was about the same time that Takeo Kawamura, then MEXT Minister, realized he’d been dealt a dud hand. SAC was supposed to be in control of MEXT, or was it CSTP in control of everything? Nobody  really knew. That was the point.  Everybody got blamed, but nobody took the rap. Kawamura realized he was just a figurehead, and that space development was on bureaucratic autopilot. Whatever you felt about Ryutaro Hashimoto at the time, he did really have some sort of guts to try to change things. So Takeo Kawamura stepped up to the plate. The rest is, as you might say, recent history ;-) .

(Scholars have tried to push the idea of the executive taking over from the Kanryo, not realizing that that if they’d seen Yes Prime Minister, they’d know that Sir Humphrey is a two-decade pushover. I’m only half joking!)

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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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Text of Review of In Defense of Japan by Foreign Affairs

Filed Under: Academic / Scholastic Journal Reviews, In Defense of Japan, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program, Reviews by admin — コメントする
2011年1月12日

It’s nice that Andrew J. Nathan Class of 1919 Professor Columbia University Political Science took the time to review In Defense of Japan for the January/February 2011 edition of Foreign Affairs and even nicer when he’s got a lot of time for the book too.

We would like to say a very big thank you to Prof. Nathan.

Here is the full review:

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In Defense of Japan Reviewed in Foreign Affairs

Filed Under: Foreign Affairs, In Defense of Japan, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2011年1月6日

Foreign Affairs has just put in a brief review of In Defense of Japan (linked to Amazon, rather than Stanford University Press, for change!) so we are happy to see us getting noticed by the people that count.

The book was touch and go for a while because when I first proposed it in 2003, the media orthodoxy (which I had been more than a little responsible for with articles such as The Decline of Japan’s Space Program on Space.com, for example, back in 2000). Around 2005 when the Kawamura Initiative was being formulated, we managed to convince people what was happening and by the time the Basic Law was passed in 2008, the book was time perfectly. As the Japanese goes: 縁がある！

Fortunately we were able to get reviews from Andrew L. Oros, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies, Washington College, and support from Dick Samuels at MIT and Kenneth Pyle and now that the militarization of Japan space is proceeding along the lines we suggested, we hope the rest of the world will start understanding Japan the way China views the country, rather than through the mirror of western media.

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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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Nice to see SUP advertising In Defense of Japan

Filed Under: Japan space development, Japan space militarization by admin — コメントする
2010年12月16日

Well that was a nice surprise from Stanford University Press who are now advertising In Defense of Japan. Great to see we are up there with some other very interesting books, including one by Kent Calder.

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SNS Features Japan’s Strategic Space Development

Filed Under: IGS, In Defense of Japan, Japan ASAT, Japan BMD, Japan Nuclear Program, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program, Orihime and Hikoboshi, SNS by admin — コメントする
2010年12月11日

Here is a special edition of SNS updating my original article of 2006 predicting what was going to happen in Japan’s space development. Four years later, I turned out to be spot on. Strategic News Service provides real information based on original reporting by experts to try to bridge the chasm opening up between the familiar media tropes and cliches of the mass media and what’s actually going on. Almost none of the information in this newsletter is from “news” conferences.

The interesting thing about the introduction to my piece is the great anxiety raised by the MOD over China’s blue water fleet and aircraft carrier. Japan is planning its own SLBM program at some point if it decides to build a strategic deterrent. With news of 800 Chinese marines at one point preparing to land on the Senkakus (only warned off at the last moment by a very angry Hillary Clinton) hopefully Japan will realize the only way to stand up to a bully is to show you that you have your own knife at the ready to his club.

—-

Publisher’s Note: For several years now, we have been watching, predicting, and documenting the basic military profiles of China and Japan, but only as they have affected international trade and markets. The latest aspect of this would be the firing of a submarine-based intercontinental missile off the coast of Los Angeles on November 5th, most likely by a Chinese submarine – an event the Pentagon continues to deny publicly.

As we’ve seen the result of China’s sustained 19%+ compound annual growth rate in military spending, it has been obvious that her neighbors in the ASEAN world have become increasingly uncomfortable. The advent of a “blue water navy,” built around a new air-carrier capacity, coming soon, will only add to this unease.

At the same time, we continue to witness China’s client state, North Korea, acting with increasing belligerence and apparent lack of care. One is reminded of a small-minded bully trying to cause trouble in the schoolyard, and then running back under the protection of some larger kid as soon as things get hot.

The peace requirements of the Japanese constitution have long been a matter of debate and contention inside Japan, and the legal modifications mentioned in today’s issue by author Paul Kallender-Umezu appear to have opened the door to a conversion of defensive hardware, software, and budget into the offensive category.

As any modern military expert will tell you, space represents the high ground in coming global conflict. As you are about to discover, the Japanese have used a large number of peaceful programs, in concert, to allow a flip-the-switch space offensive capability beyond almost anyone’s current estimation.

I have no doubt that all of our members will be surprised and awakened to a new military space power they previously had underestimated. I think this issue of the SNS Asia Letter lives up to a well-earned reputation for clearly describing a major strategic issue that other media have yet to touch. If you want to understand Japan’s response to China’s military buildup, this letter provides an excellent place to start. And given the positioning of these second- and third-largest global economies, and their recent and growing skirmishes, this understanding should be required of all people doing business in Asia.

Americans didn’t take much notice when North Korea fired missiles over the country a few years ago – but the Japanese did. The results follow. – mra.

___

» Japan’s Strategic Space Development: Onward and Upward!

By Paul Kallender-Umezu [Tokyo]

Japan is rolling up its sleeves and getting to work on beefing up its military space technologies, whether it looks like it or not.

When explaining Japan’s military space program to otherwise intelligent people whose main source of information may be only reports from the mass media, I often get blank stares. “Japan? Does Japan even have a space program?” Some might remember astronaut Naoko Yamazaki performing the important scientific task of making sushi in a kimono on the International Space Station; others might remember an asteroid mission that recently brought some cosmic dust back to Earth. But overall, when people think of Asia and space, they probably think of China’s space program, because that’s where the majority of media attention is.

The recent Hayabusa[1] (“Falcon”) mission is a case in point. In a seven-year journey, Hayabusa flew over 2 billion kilometers on a revolutionary new ion-engine propulsion system, overcoming technical malfunctions to collect samples from an asteroid and bring them back to Earth. The mission, which contained many firsts, was spearheaded by half a dozen eggheads on a couple of hundred million bucks (that’s trim and tremendous in the space world). But you wouldn’t know much about that if you’d read the mainstream press, with coverage which focused more on problems and caveats rather than  successes.

So when I start talking about Japan’s military space programs, I often use the metaphor of a high-quality Japanese hocho – a type of kitchen knife – to describe what’s up with this strategic national technology program. As the NRA is fond of reminding people, it’s not the gun that kills, it’s the person pulling the trigger. The hocho may not be official issue in the SAS or Delta force, but this 10-inch-plus, finely crafted, durable and razor-sharp sushi-slasher is the weapon of choice for many a Japanese convenience-store robber. The shape and label point to a different application, but the sharp end still does the business. Similarly, Japan’s space program was explicitly meant for peaceful purposes right up to 2008.

Actually, Japan is a military space power with a huge toolkit of up-to-date and serviceable technologies that will keep it in the leading pack of space-faring nations, if and when it chooses to go nuclear, or if and when an orbital arms race kicks in. Sound outlandish? My book In Defense of Japan: From the Market to the Military in Space Policy (Stanford University Press, 2010)[2] goes into this exhaustively, but for a digest of some of the main issues, please read on.

Four years ago, in the SNS newsletter, I predicted that the militarization of Japan’s space program would kick into higher gear after 2010, once the nation’s almost childishly sentimental legislative breaks on such activities – a 1969 Diet resolution that limited Japan’s space development to peaceful purposes only – were removed.

This has indeed happened. In May 2008, Japan passed the Basic Space Bill establishing a national Space Headquarters for Space Policy [3](SHSP) in the Prime Minister’s Cabinet office to remove the longstanding ban on Japan’s military use of space assets and to promote Japan’s space industry. Most notably:

  • Article 2 “provides that space development and use shall be conducted in accordance with international treaties and other international commitments including the Outer Space Treaty, and pursuant to the spirit of the peaceful principle of the Constitution of Japan”; and
  • Article 14 requires the government to take “necessary measures to promote space development and use” that would promote both national and international security.

….and so on. Please go to the SNS site for the rest.

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Proof for “National Security” Ahoy!

Filed Under: In Defense of Japan, Japan space development, Japan space militarization by admin — コメントする
2010年11月24日

Just received the proofs for  “National Security in Japan’s Space Policy” from Purnendra Jain at the  Centre for Asian Studies at The University of Adelaide. We are “doing” Chapter 6 for his book “Japan: A Declining Giant?” (Routledge, 2010).

Purnendra Jain is a recognized Asia expert- even the media knows-  and it’s good to see our work getting attention from people that count.

It’s only 10 pages but we still managed to rack up 48 footnotes.  It’s a bit better than some of the biased and ignorant screed I’ve seen in dirty digger rags of late.

Looks like we are behind the scheduled publishing date of December, but, hey, what the heck.

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Japan’s Post-2016 commitment to JEM/ ISS and HTV-R

Filed Under: Japan space development, reentry technology, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2010年9月14日

It was nice to see that a major spending and technology decisions about the future of Japan’s space technology development and human space were actually picked up by some media recently. I feel partially responsible for this, but it’s not often that I bother any more to go and try to write important stories.

However an old friend of mine in MEXT felt that there was a story that just had to be told, whether or not it had a “news peg.” In the end I had to manufacture one, which turned out to be a case of killing two birds with one stone, in the form of the HTV-R. Here is the original story, which was picked up and spun by several other media:

Japan Presses Forward with Post-2015 ISS Utilization, Plans HTV-R

Japan is pressing forward with ambitious plans to enhance Japan’s role on the International Space Station (ISS) in the post-2015 era by before 2020 adding supply/equipment return capability for the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), Japan’s automated cargo ferry, and better utilizing the Kibo laboratory, according to government and agency officials here.
In an August 11 briefing to the Space Activities Commission (SAC), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) outlined two major enhancement options for the automated HTV cargo supply ship that will sooner or later give the vessel the ability to carry humans, said Seiichi Ueno, director of Program Management and Integration Department of Human Space Systems Directorate at JAXA, who gave the briefing.
Scenario 1 for the new HTV with Return Vehicle (HTV-R) seeks to equip the HTV with a 2.6-meter diameter pressurized capsule that would detach itself from the belly of the 9.2 meter long, 4.4-meter diameter HTV and deorbit payloads of up to 300kg. The more ambitious Scenario 2 would create a much larger 4-meter diameter pressurized capsule capable of returning 1.6 tons. Both designs would be considered stepping stones to adding human capability to the HTV-R sometime after 2020, Ueno said in an August 13 interview.
The decision to develop an HTV-R is founded on two principals, Ueno said. Overall, evolving sample/equipment return and human rating has always been part of HTV’s development since designing started in the early 1990s, and JAXA is interested in finding ways to continue to support the ISS program to provide more supply options. Secondly, the Japanese government in May recommended that Japan develop basic technologies for independent human space capabilities.
The present HTV will play a major role in keeping the ISS working, ferrying around 6 tons of vital supplies to the ISS on each mission. Following the successful first launch of the HTV-1 aboard Japan’s new heavy-lift H-2B launcher in September 2009, the HTV is scheduled to make another six resupply missions to the ISS by the end of 2015.
With the probable development of the HTV-R, JAXA will conduct a Mission Definition Review for preparation of the development phase by the end of this year, Ueno said.
“JAXA will determine which option to take as the best path….for future human transportation, considering the cost-benefit trade-off and the available and affordable funding level. The demerit for Option 2 would be mainly the cost and the deployment schedule. Option 1 will leave more work for us get to human transportation capability,” he said.
Ueno declined to answer questions on possible development costs, although he called a first flight of an HTV-R between 2016-18 “likely” but dependent on technical challenges and budget.
According to Shigekazu Matsuura, director of the Office of Space Utilization Promotion at the Ministry of the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, (MEXT) JAXA’s plans for HTV-R are an important part of Japan’s desire to make the most of the Kibo module in the post 2016 era.
Following this February’s budget approval by the Obama Administration to keep the vast floating laboratory operational until 2020 and the Heads of Agency International Space Station Joint Statement this March to reach consensus on how best to do that, Japan has conducted a major review of the future of the ISS and Japan’s role. In a report published this June, SAC, which has oversight of JAXA, strongly endorsed making the most of the station, praising the ISS program for its major role in supporting technology development, particularly in developing Japan’s human spaceflight capability and in maintaining the nation’s space industrial base.
“About 650 Japanese companies are involved in the space station in one way or another and saying you are involved has tremendous international prestige,” Matsuura said in an August 10 interview.
Atsushi Sunami, director, Science and Technology Policy Program at Japan’s National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies and a key author of the SAC report said that participation in the ISS is important for Japan’s soft diplomacy and power projection.
“Japan is the only Asian nation to participate in the ISS at this moment. Given the rise of China and followed by India…policy makers understand the importance of Japan’s continuous presence in the ISS perhaps more easily.”
Because Kibo’s specific scientific utility for on-orbit experiments, which relies on a domestic peer review system, is less clear at the moment, the report strongly recommends that JAXA should broaden requests for proposals to so-called “power users,” meaning major Japanese and top-class research institutes in the post-2016 era to yield a great variety of research themes that can be selected by a much wider scientific community, Matsuura said.
MEXT is hoping to maintain its current budget as near as possible to the the present 40 billion yen ($469 million) annual utilization budget in the post 2015 era, Matsuura said.

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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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The Shape of Things to Come- In Defense of Japan takes SUP Shape

Filed Under: In Defense of Japan, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2010年5月18日

Well here it is folks- In Defense of Japan PR from SUP with a nice blurb by Andrew L. Oros.


“What makes this book so useful and impressive is that it draws together extensive coverage of developments in Japan’s space industry—both from the government and the corporate side—with a broad treatment of government reform and Japan’s evolving security policy. In addition, it provides the most sustained argument I am aware of on the role of corporations in Japan’s security policymaking.”—Andrew L. Oros, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies, Washington College

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JAXA to test J-POD

Filed Under: Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program, Micro-Nano-Picosats by admin — コメントする
2010年5月18日


JAXA was due to take another important step forward in its informal Operationally Responsive Space Program (ORS) (dubbed SOD, or Space on Demand, by some sources) this morning with the test of J-POD, the JAXA Picosatellite Deployer, on board the PLANET-C/ Akatsuki Venus climate monitoring mission and the IKAROS (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun) solar sail test mission.

While the media has focused on Akatsuki and IKAROS, this latest outing by the H-IIA (H-IIA F17) is strategically significant in the testing of next generation ORS technologies through J-POD, that is to say, the ability to sprinkle/disperse micro- and picosatellites into different orbits.

It’s the J-POD, not the PPOD, that’s most the most interesting part of this mission from a strategic perspective as it is imperative that Japan continue to develop and test micro- and picosatellite deployment technologies and scenarios for the ASR/Epsilon. Also J-POD and future iterations will also allow the MOD or other stakeholders to discretely launch and deploy future warfighting and counterspace payloads. These may or may not be embedded in civilian formation flying missions, etc. Since the MOD has shown a strong interest in microsatellites for SSA and ORS, it’s important that Japan keep on running these dual-use technology demonstrator programs.

In today’s attempted launch (currently postponed because of icing fears) J-POD will release three small secondary payloads: WASEDA-SAT2, K-Sat and Negai, before injecting Akatsuki into Venus transfer orbit. The H-IIA will continue its coast flight and separate the IKAROS and UNISEC’s UNITEC-1 from the Payload Attach Fitting (PAF900M).

The growing prowess of JAXA in injecting completely heterogeneous missions into very different orbits is duly noted.

Also, let’s not forget the satellites themselves, part of Japan’s thriving and bubbling microsatellite building knowledge infrastructure, which truly seems to be burgeoning. This set of missions is interesting from a number of angles. Firstly we now have non-elite universities developing picosatellite technology- both Negai, by Soka University and K-Sat by Kagoshima Universities are 1kg-class picosats. K-Sat is interesting because despite being only a single unit CubeSat, it will be able to perform multiple (if simple) missions, including studying water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere, and conduct microwave imagery and spacecraft communications tests.

Waseda-SAT2 is much more interesting in that it will perform both an EO mission and test the use of attitude control with the use of extendible paddles. The importance of this hardly needs stating.

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Last 60 pages of footnotes edited

Filed Under: In Defense of Japan, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2010年5月14日

Well at running up at to 100 footnotes per chapter and what must be 500+ sources, that was was…a slog.

So there you have it; 362 pages, seven chapters, 19 tables, seven years and a tanker of coffee into In Defense of Japan.

In a key interview with Matsui a few weeks ago I got a strong sense of just how revolutionary Maehara is trying to be- he’s attempted to completely short circuit the SHSTP, sidestep the opposition of MEXT and outflank METI in making sure that civilian control is hardwired into what is effectively a re-establishment of the old Space Activities Commission.
We’ll know by August whether he succeeds or not. I’m interviewing him on June 1 to try to get the SP. Too late for the book, though.
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Jaxa rebrands its SOD launcher prototype as "Epsilon"

Filed Under: Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program, Missile Technology, Space on Demand, USEF, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2010年4月11日

JAXA has rebranded Japan’s ORS rocket program “Epsilon,” rather a nice name. Under the rubric of making launches as simple as daily events, Epsilon is touted as cheapening and simplifying access to space.

Which is a laudable aim. But of course, the back story is somewhat more interesting. The Epsilon is based on the Solid Rocket Booster-A built by Nissan Aerospace (before it was subsumed into arch rival IHI) for the H-2A, which is based on Thiokol’s carbon casing technology. An early story I did for this in Space News focused on the hickups on getting this highly strategic military technology shipped over to Japan with its supposedly “peaceful only” space development.

As it is, Epsilon will play a key role in Japan’s military space technology, firstly in being used to launch the ASNARO/Saske and HiMEOS high resolution spysat constellations being built under the auspices of USEF, but more importantly is its position in Japan’s counterspace hedge technology development program in which it plays a key role in developing Operationally Responsive Space access capabilities.

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Galleys due in mid-April

Filed Under: In Defense of Japan, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program by admin — コメントする
2010年4月1日

Well we did a final gentle rewrite of Chapters 1 and 7 mid-month and I have just heard that the galleys will be out in two weeks (mid-April).

Even now as I am thinking about the book, I am wondering how to refine our arguments more subtly.

The need for the book seems clear and present even within the Space community. I’ve been reading Space Security 2009 recently and am surprised by how much they ignore Japan’s technology, including ETS-7 for proximity maneuvering!

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In Defense of Japan:Final Edits for Chapters 1 and 7 Completed

Filed Under: In Defense of Japan, Japan space development, Japan space militarization, Japan space program, 未分類 by admin — コメントする
2010年3月16日

Finally…home stretch now!

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