Space

Japan: The Next Space Power?

The commercialisation of satellite launching and later other space based activities are very likely to be exploited by Japan’s growing space industry. The Japanese, following a strategy analogous to their past exploits in the automotive and commercial electronics industry, are poised to enter the world launcher market. Japan has maintained a very low profile in space launch activity but has nevertheless successfully launched more than thirty satellites since 1970, most of these on Japanese built launch vehicles. The overall scale of the space programme is modest by superpower standards but provided with stable funding, something which the Japanese unlike many Western nations accept as a necessary part of national technological development.

While Japan’s National Space Development Agency (NASDA) stresses the non-commercial orientation of the agency, its commitment to both booster development and manned spaceflight, evidenced by the forming of an astronaut corps and purchase of a whole Shuttle/Spacelab mission, illustrates the long-term philosophy common to Japanese industry of aiming at marketable technologies.

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