Here is an older about the IGS spy satellite constellation for Space News which has been left “as is” by the Office of National Space Policy (ONSP) in its February 25 Mk. II Basic Plan. I have a lot to say about this for academia this year, but managed to get a story out for Aviation Week & Space Technology, which I’ll post a bit later.
Posted by japanspace on May 9, 2013
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/japan-rebuilding-igs-spy-satellite-network/
Here is an insight into how Japanese journalists (with many honorable exceptions) over the issues. You can get an idea of piece just from the title: “New Satellite Race.” What on earth (or in orbit) that is supposed to mean, is beyond me.
The point is that the article raises legitimate concerns in its conclusion:
「政府の担当者の間では、発射のタイミングを正確にとらえるためにも、DSPなど「宇宙の目」の役割は重要と考えられている。このため、日本でも自前のDSP導入に向けた研究が始まった。
しかし課題は山積している。DSPにはミサイルの熱源をもとに瞬時に種類や能力を割り出し、弾道を緻密に解析できるソフトウエア開発が欠かせない。しかし日本にはそうしたデータの蓄積がない。しかも早期警戒システムには衛星だけでなく、集めた情報を部隊間で共有する巨大なネットワークの構築も必要になる。
03年から打ち上げが始まった政府の情報収集衛星に投じられた経費は現在、7000億円近い。開発費を含めればDSPも数千億円かかると推定されており、国民の納得が得られるかどうかという新たな問題に直面する。」
Which boils down to legitimate doubts and questions about Japan’s EW program. But the point is without context/ contextual/ relevant contextual presentation by the journalist, the Japanese public is left thinking that the Asahi’s question raising motivated by its political stance; even a few more cursory levels of analysis of facts and background would have made this more helpful…but at least it isn’t at the pizza on the moon level of rubbish that we sometimes see in the foreign press.
So I figure, anything that gets Japanese space development issues into the media by a reasonable journalist has to be something…
Posted by japanspace on November 19, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/%e8%87%aa%e8%a1%9b%e9%9a%8a%e3%82%82%e5%ae%87%e5%ae%99%e5%88%a9%e7%94%a8%e3%81%b8-japanese-journalism-on-ew/
Here is a story that Space News asked me to write for their Military Space Quarterly, so it gave me a chance to write a little bit about the militarization of Japan’s space development, which is apparently not occurring.
The intriguing thing for me as a media participant and, more recently, as an observer, is why Japan’s development of a UAV program for early warning should suddenly become news.
And, ahem…news.
Well, it’s because the Yomuiri decided it was news, even though the information has been out there since August, when the request for the budget was put out.
This led to the story being printed in the English and then suddenly the WSJ even has an angle.
Perhaps the journalist has figured out that maritime observation was somehow important to the U.S.-Japan Alliance, perhaps as it has been written in as one of the fours priority areas of cooperation. in the U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee (2+2) (June 2011).
The funniest story of them all was an AFP hack job on the Yomiuri story which was itself re-sluiced round media slop sites, including a website called Inquirer.net, which quoted the AFP quoting the Yomiuri as saying “The defense ministry has demanded 3 billion yen ($372 million) over the next four years to develop the aircraft, which would come into operation in 2020, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported without citing sources.”
The Yomiuri Shimbun’s source was, as I mentioned, the publicly available MOD budget request, released months before, in color:
The fact that Japan is developing UAVs is old, old news; the fact that it is developing them as an alternative to satellite- based EW was big news- back in August. I wonder why the Yomiuri decided to notice the story months later?
In any case, for space watchers, the interesting point about this why is Japan researching twin Early Warning programs simultaneously?
If you believe in the cock-up theory of history and recognize the stovepiping inherent in any large bureaucracy, then you might call it one hand not knowing what the other is doing.
In this case however, it is more probably the extreme anxiety that the MOD feels about buying Japanese, which is probably based on the fact that the IGS has proved so problematical for Japan. There is a strong sense in the MoD that it can buy better gear, cheaper, with guaranteed compatibility and interoperability in terms of space based EW, so why risk buying from Melco?
Also there are tricky decisions whether to mount EW sensors on the geo-based satellites of QZSS, or develop standalone satellites, or put capability on a future Himawari, among other options on the table. In the meantime, cheap and cheerful UAV-mounted sensors are an option.
I’ll talk about SSA in a later submission, perhaps at the end of the month. If EW looks complicated for Japan, wait till you see what is happening with SSA! Anyway, here is a recent article from Space News.
Posted by japanspace on November 19, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/jsp-catchup-8-japan-to-boost-missile-warning-other-surveillance-efforts-2/
Here is the follow-up to JSP Catchup #6: Probe Uncovers 40-year Japanese Contractor Fraud and a fuller story for Defense News published the following week. I am still intrigued on who blew the whistle and why, but hopefully this will clean out a very mucky stable. Again there are so many unanswered questions, but perhaps it was felt that Melco had gotten too big for its boots.
This was certainly the message I got around Kasumigaseki in the mid-noughties when it became increasingly apparent that, at least in space, the IGS was overpriced and not very functional. But it seemed that Japan was stuck with it until better alternatives came up.
Meanwhile, Melco’s answer was, of course, to ask for more money to improve (repair) the IGS. The numbers of contracts and amounts are quite staggering, because the practice of overcharging was built into the very fabric of Melco’s system, and reading between the lines, it seems that the NEC scandal of 1998, instead of provoking a response to clean up, it did the reverse- Melco adopted increasingly sophisticated systems of cover-up and concealment. Not good.
A basic fact is that Melco produces a lot of excellent technology and systems and is a corner stone of Japan’s defense and space industries. While it really should have cleaned its stable out in 1998, as no doubt many others did, to the degree of information that is available, it seems that justice is being done. Perhaps at last, some real “Changes for the Better” ?
Posted by japanspace on November 19, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/jsp-catchup-7-japan-still-calculating-cost-of-defense-firms-padded-bills/
This story was NOT a surprise; the fuller story is at Japan Still Calculating Cost of Defense Firm’s Padded Bills, but ever since NEC Corp. in 1998 was found with its hands in the till, I have been wondering who would be fingered next, and when, and why when, and why.
I say this because when I chatted to people back in 1998, the practice of padding contracts with surplus labor costs was widespread in the space and defense sectors and this was commonly known. At the time the questions were Why NEC? And Why Now? Below my initial October story is NEC SCANDAL SHEDS LIGHT ON JAPANESE PROCUREMENTS, a more fruity web version of a story that I originally wrote for Space News back in the day.
The timing for the original NEC story was also interesting as NEC was strongly pushing for its version of what was to become Japan’s IGS spy satellite system that was provoked by the Teapodon Trigger– an analysis that Saadia and I wrote about in In Defense of Japan (thank you Google Books!)
At the time NEC’s version of what was to become the IGS would have featured smaller satellites and cost less than Melco’s system. But with NEC suddenly out of the picture, Melco, with Ichiro Taniguchi at the helm, managed to personally lobby Japan’s Cabinet in the weeks after the Taepondon launch, and Japan’ got the IGS.
Here is a nice picture from Space Safety Magazine of Japan’s 1,200-Kilogram IGS 1B Satellite re-entered Earth’s Atmosphere on Thursday, July 26, 2012 after spending nearly 9.5 years in space. Another more detailed article about this can be found at Spaceflight.101.com.
Eventually, NEC’s small-bus and higher resolution system has been re-emerging in the ASNARO system, which is now being pushed as an alternative and complementary system to the expensive and relatively lower performance IGS, and also as the linchpin of a satellite-based, pan-Asian disaster monitoring network that is now a major part of Japan’s emerging regional space diplomacy and security strategy. At least the Vietnamese have bought into it, and while customers don’t seem to be forming a line yet, there is still a lot of hope out there.
Here is the initial story for Defense News:
By Paul Kallender in Tokyo
When, in September 1998, an investigation into the Japanese Defense Agency (JDA) discovered that Japanese technology giant NEC Corp had systematically defrauded the taxpayer on 33 space contracts over the course of five years, it looked as though Japan’s obviously abused government procurement system was about to get a major overhaul.
The investigation began promisingly enough. On September 3, Tokyo prosecutors raided the JDA and arrested Kenichi Ueno, deputy head of the Procurement Office, and a clutch of executives from NEC subsidiary Toyo Communications.
This followed discoveries that not only had Toyo overcharged the JDA some $21m over dozens of equipment contracts, but that Ueno and others had conspired to prevent Toyo, NEC and other subsidiaries from repaying the money. NEC was raided the next day and by September 10, nine senior NEC and JDA executives were in jail.
It came to light that Ueno and others had lifted incriminating paperwork out of the Agency’s filing cabinets and put them into incinerators and even the homes of friends. NEC’s SuperTower headquarters was soon besieged by the Japanese phenomenon of ‘sound trucks,’ driven by right-wing extremists screaming abuse and demanding mass resignations.
But instead of resulting in the punishment of protagonists and the start of reforms, the scandal collapsed into a desultory cover-up. NEC’s initial response was to deny everything, with a bemused VP Masakatsu Miwa telling the media on September 10 that he did not expect top NEC executives to resign because of the scandal, going on to explain that he “wondered why” NEC officials were being implicated. Unfortunately for Miwa, on September 29, NEC’s overcharging was upscaled to $2.5bn, while, on the same day, a Parliamentary committee reported that the JDA had hired no less than 44 NEC executives in senior positions in just two years. By October 10, former NEC VP Hiroaki Shimayama and Takenori Yanase, VP of NEC’s Space Systems Division, had both been arrested.
Thieves charter
The National Space Development Agency (NASDA) launched an inquiry and on November 9, NEC admitted overcharging by at least $19m. Meanwhile on October 14, the JDA revealed that 225 of its officials had been hired by 20 suppliers in the past five years, shedding some dim light on a corner of Japan’s Amadudari (Descent from Heaven) career kickback system.
At the heart of the issue, according to NASDA’s former executive director Akira Kubozono, is the flawed government contract system which encourages corruption through a combination of legendary meanness and bureaucratic incompetence.
“There are two points about this affair,” he said. “One is that NEC is just a scapegoat. The second is that the governmental contract system is the cause of this scandal. When the defense contract revelations began, I thought it was only a matter of time before it spread into NEC’s space systems division as both defense and space procurement are conducted under similar systems.”
Under the Japanese government contract system, the co ntractor is obliged to repay any unused budget if the delivery price falls below the contract amount, and the contractor must also incur any costs if the project overshoots the agreed estimate — a thieves charter if ever there was one.
Furthermore NASDA, the Science and Technology Agency and the Ministry of Finance lack the technical expertise to evaluate bids and tend to just accept company estimates, says Kubozono. “The system needs to be reformed but I doubt this is possible as long as NASDA and the corporations are controlled by STA administrators (who also often retire to executive positions in NASDA) and not by engineers,” he says.
No mettle Kubozono, it seems, was right.
By November 12, the space scandal seemed to have been wrapped up, with NASDA saying it was satisfied that only NEC had abused the system. “The system has worked well for 30 years. We believe that a little devil whispered into NEC’s ear. We do not think it will happen again,” said Yasuyuki Fukumuro, NASDA PR deputy director. Fukumuro quickly admitted that NEC would be allowed to bid for Japan’s new spy satellite system, after a token contract moratorium.
Back at the JDA, a grand total of six senior officials will take up to 10% pay cuts for one to three months plus one official will receive a 10-day suspension, JDA chief Fukushiro Nukuga told the media at his November 20 resignation press conference.
The speech followed a report, which admitted that there had been “some incidents that could be regarded as a systematic cover-up,” perhaps referring to the 31 officials suspected of Berlin-bunker style burning of documentation that might have provided evidence.
But the worst thing about the affair, according to observers, has been the brazen arrogance of NEC. In his October 23 resignation speech, NEC Chairman Tadahiro Sekimoto, now under personal investigation for his role in the affair, denied any involvement but resigned out of “social responsibility” for the affair, astonishing Kubozono in particular.
“Sekimoto’s act was spineless. If he had honor he would have resigned to take responsibility, not quibbled. He showed no mettle and is a very poor example for younger business leaders. I fear for Japan’s future.”
An even poorer analysis comes from Youichi Teraishi, Editor of Japan’s ‘scandaru’ [scandal] daily, the Nikkan Gendai. He says that Sekimoto’s act compared unfavorably with Yakuza (the Japanese Mafia) standards of conduct. “This Oyabun [Japanese gang boss] showed a lack of chivalry. Captains of industry are supposed to be able to demonstrate this, but Sekimoto lacked the class,” he says.
Lastly, the scandal has left NEC seething that it was singled out for a brutal slap on the wrist. “Everyone is doing it, why should we be the scapegoat?” admitted one NEC official. “Our top management just stuck their heads in the sand and got shafted,” complained another.
This article first appeared in Global Technology News.
Posted by japanspace on November 19, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/jsp-catchup-6-probe-uncovers-40-year-japanese-contractor-fraud/
Here is the Space News version of the Defense News story I put out earlier: it’s a case of better late than never, and I will be trying to cover developments in various media as well as for my academic and policy paper requirements. “Please watch this space!”
I had a long talk with Saadia Pekkanen, my coauthor of In Defense of Japan and everything we predicted is coming on slowly and surely. How things will pan out immediately will quickly be seen in the upcoming budget request. However, a massive revision of the Basic Plan of 2009 is also a top priority of the new Uchusenryaku Shitsu (Space Strategy Office) and we will have concrete evidence of the next 5-year plan then. The timetable for the revised Basic Plan could be as early as within this year. This and a Space Activities Act are the top priorities, according to Takafumi Matsui, who one of the core group behind the changes.
Space News version of my earlier Defense News story
Posted by japanspace on July 9, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/japan-passes-overhaul-of-space-management-structure/
Here is the text of the quick story I put up last Friday for Defense News. For background on this story Japan Space Law: Now Mid-May, or When?
I’ll have a more more commentary on this later in the week. Well it’s three years late, but finally it’s gone through after considerable struggles. I’ll have something of a more detailed picture on the whole thing out later this year for Space Policy.
However talking to Kazuto Suzuki and Norihio Sakamoto over the past few weeks I have been struck by the differences of opinion on the upcoming speed with which the 宇宙戦略室 (Space Strategy Office) is going to be able to act. Sakamoto believes that the much-needed Space Activities Act, which is much needed to promote commercialization in J-space could come even within this year. Suzuki believes the law isn’t really a priority and not needed. Listening to an SHSP presentaiton on the issue earlier this year at a conference to establish the Keio Advanced Research Center for Space Law, the message seems mixed.
It has been pointed out that essentially the three-year battle to wrest control of space policy and execution from MEXT was de facto won last year when the SHSP under Katase effectively grabbed the budget negotiations with the MOF away from MEXT. You can see the effect immediately in that the much prized JAXA-MEXT flagship Hayabusa-2 program got its huge budget request stomped.
But the new law is far more than window dressing, as I will go on to explain in subsequent posts.
Tokyo — The Upper House of Japan’s Diet June 20 passed legislation that shifts control of the nation’s space policy and budget, and opens the door to military space development programs with an emphasis on space-based missile early warning.
The raft of legislation, based on the Bill to Amend the Law of Establishment of the Cabinet Office that was sent to the Diet on Feb. 14, enables the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office to take control of the planning and budgeting of Japan’s government space program. It also removes an article in a prior law governing the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the nation’s equivalent to NASA, which had restricted JAXA’s ability to pursue military space programs.
Prior to the legislation, JAXA had been de facto controlled by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), and was overseen by a MEXT committee called the Space Activities Commission (SAC), leading to criticisms of regulatory capture.
At the same time, JAXA’s space development has been restricted to an extremely narrow “peaceful purposes only” policy, which meant the agency was unable to develop specifically military space programs.
The new legislation enables the Cabinet Office to set up a Space Strategy Office, headed by the prime minister, which will have the ultimate say on all policy and budget decisions. It will be supported by a consultative Space Policy Commission of five to seven academics and independent observers.
The legislation also scraps MEXT’s control of JAXA and abolishes SAC, said Kazuto Suzuki, associate professor of international political economy at the Public Policy School of Hokkaido University.
Japan’s space development has been hampered by the peaceful-purposes-only restriction, and by what many outside MEXT see as programs focused too much on technological development for its own sake, leading to expensive launch systems and satellites that serve little practical purpose for the nation, Suzuki said.
The passing of the law ends a process that began nearly a decade ago by politicians looking for ways to leverage Japan’s space development programs and technologies for security purposes, to bolster the nation’s defenses in the face of increased tensions in East Asia.
On top of an increasingly confident China, Japan faces a potentially belligerent and unstable North Korea just across the Sea of Japan. Since 1998, North Korea has consistently flouted and broken promises, norms and international laws in developing and testing nuclear weapons and missiles.
JAXA will now be permitted to develop space programs in line with international norms, which are governed by the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. The treaty allows military space development, but not the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in orbit.
As the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) will all have a form of “joint control” over JAXA, the space agency will gradually move away from its purely scientific, non-military role, said analysts and experts involved with drawing up the legislation. Under the new arrangement, each ministry will be able to propose its own space programs.
METI, for example, is interested in promoting dual-use Earth observation and reconnaissance satellites and an air-launch space access system, according to the ministry.
Suzuki said there also is strong bipartisan political support for Japan to develop and launch its own missile early-warning system to support the nation’s small fleet of Aegis destroyers for upper-tier defense, and its PAC-3 systems for lower-tier defense.
The Cabinet Office also will take direct control of the budget and program development of Japan’s regional GPS system, called the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System.
More immediately, the Cabinet Office is likely to set up the Space Strategy Office and Space Policy Commission as early as July 1, said Norihiro Sakamoto, a research fellow at The Tokyo Foundation, a think tank based here.
The Space Strategy Office will quickly move to draft new laws and policies to shift Japan’s space focus away from purely research and development programs to a more national, security-orientated approach that encourages the industrialization and commercialization of Japan’s space industry.
In particular, Japan needs to draw up a comprehensive space law, a “Space Activities Act,” which will provide a legal framework for privately funded space initiatives, and a five-year space plan to run through the second half of the decade.
Posted by japanspace on June 23, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/finally-japan-passes-law-permitting-military-space-development/
The plot thickens. As I pointed out in my original blog, all is not what it seems in the conventional media narrative about North Korean space launches and missile tests. The Yomiuri in “DPRK ‘told U.S. about plan on Dec. 15′” has just done some important work in revealing that it may well be that the United States knew as early as mid-December about this April’s North Korean satellite launch. The story reads as follows:
“WASHINGTON–A senior North Korean government official informed the United States before the death of Kim Jong Il was announced in December of its plan to launch a satellite, according to a former senior U.S. government official.
In an article for a U.S. research institute, Evans Revere, who served as acting assistant secretary of state under the administration of President George W. Bush, wrote that the decision to carry out the launch is highly likely to have been made by the late North Korean leader.
…Revere met with the North Korean official on Dec. 15 and was told about the planned launch of what some people believed to be a missile. The meeting is believed to have taken place in New York…”
This fits entirely in with standard practice by media, partly because it’s a great story, to hype the DPRK threat, (remember the original Taepodon incident of 1998 was not a shock at all, it was a trigger) which is used by Japan’s political establishment (rightly, in my opinion) to promote further strategic investment and spending in Japan’s defense capabilities. Ultimately, and very indirectly of course, this is fed by nationalism and fear of abandonment. Those specters lurk very deep in the background. But they are there, nonetheless.
This whole prearranged dance is not what it seems at all…
….While a minor and enjoyable subroutine of my job as a researcher is to look at how politicians and the media work to manufacture opinion one of the hazards and joys is looking at the some of the dire rubbish that is fed to otherwise intelligent readers by the dregs of the media, I feel it’s important to keep some sort of sensible narrative up about important incidents such at the DPRK’s satellite launch. The whole idea about deploying PAC-3 to Okinawa to defend Japan is made-up media guff but the launch over the Yellow Sea will provide the MSDF with a valuable tracking and training opportunity, while there is no threat to Japan or its southernmost island chain at all.
For your amusement:
If you did read the CNN piece about those good ol’ Eagis ships protecting us from the commies, you would have also learned from CNN International that the North Koreans were planning “a rocket-powered satellite launch.” Or was that The Daily Telegraph? Well hot dog!
It looks like the Taepodon Trigger #3 is fully in effect in both Japan and the ROK meanwhile.
Posted by japanspace on March 23, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/taepodon-trigger3-son-of-taepodon/
You couldn’t make it up. You just couldn’t. I just asked the MOD about this very likelihood this week!
The announcement that the DPRK is attempting a third satellite launch in mid-April is just the sort of development that will help propel Japan’s basic BMD and nascent military space deployment.
The fact that so the Eunha-3 (Galaxy) rocket will fly over the Yellow Sea and not Japan doesn’t mean the news hasn’t already caused a huge stir in Japan, with the story being the top news on most TV.
Regardless of the flightpath, the launch will constitute another violation of June 2009’s UNSC Resolution 1874 that was passed the last time DPRK tried to launch a satellite (see below).
“We urge North Korea to exercise restraint and refrain from the launch,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura, echoing statements from ROK.
What timing!
On Tuesday I was talking to Masayuki Iwaike, Director of Missile Defense and Space Policy at MOD about Japan’s approach to SSA and likely speed of moves by Japan on Early Warning, following last June’s 2+2, when Japan and the U.S. basically agreed that Japan will add some form of EW capability to its BMD systems, either through adding IR sensors on QZSS/Michibiki or through several different satellite bus plans (candidates include
SERVIS-3 by USEF and ASNARO, among others) with the CISC probably jealously guarding its independence with the IGS program, keeping it from the Space Strategy Office to be formed in April.
The key point about next week’s Defense News article, will be that Japan has more or less completed its basic two-tier BMD system, with its radar and sensor structure also on the verge of completion with the fourth and final FPS-5 S-band phased array ground based early warning radar nearly finished, joining the upgraded FPS-3 3-D phased-array radars, and JADGE up and running. Meanwhile PAC-3 is being boosted and the MSDF is adding two more SM3-Block 1A capable cruisers.
So the big question was to Iwaike, will you accelerate plans or add capability if the recent U.S.-DPRK agreement turns out to be not worth the paper its written on?
– Remember last month North Korea supposedly agreed to suspend uranium enrichment, halt nuclear and long-range missile tests, and to allow back U.N. weapons inspectors in exchange for a quarter of a million tons of “food aid.”
So what happens if they start firing off their nasty fireworks demonstrating significant new capabilities, or creditable information comes out about successful miniaturization of their Pakistani/stolen bargain-basement fission bomb technology (actually, then consequently making it a creditable threat)?
Will Japan build out BMD?
Of course, I didn’t put the it that way, but the message was an unequivocal yes. Because all the key systems are in place. But that’s for next week’s article.
Please read Defense News on Monday.
The beauty of the SM3-/PAC-3 two-tier system is that it works (with caveats, see Navy Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Program: Background and Issues for Congress) and it’s only going to get better. And when the Chinese decided to create chaos in orbit with its 2007 ASAT test leading to what is rapidly going to become a crisis if nothing is done over the next decade, the U.S. was able to remind the Chinese just whom they are dealing with if they are serious.
And then, just on time, news comes out that North Korea is attempting its third satellite launch (Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3) around April 12-16 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth Kim Il Sung, on April 15.
The Taepodon Trigger
One of the key stories in In Defense of Japan is the story of the Taepodon Trigger, which is more commonly called the Taepodon Shock.
Whatever else it doesn’t have going for it, the DPRK is a master of timing. It’s almost as if it wants Japan to further rearm to create a foreign bugbear to rail against and rally the (starving) masses. The history of DPRK missile launches is quite intriguing. In 1998, the attempted launch of Kwangmyongsong-1 
aboard a re-gigged Taepodon gave Japan the decisive inflection point it needed to launching military space development, instead of developing dual-use technology research and development programs that could be converted to military use if and when needed. This is essentially the story behind Japan’s IGS, which is a regigged Melco USERS bus with not very good radar and optical sensors (which are getting better, nearing half-meter now for Gen-2 optical at least).
At the time, I can vividly remember the shock and outrage behind the missile overfly, which was largely stage-managed by media and politicians, since (a) Japan and the U.S. knew about the launch a month in advance, having been informed by the DPRK about it, and had an Aegis missile cruiser tracking the thing (b) the satellite launch didn’t actually violate Japan’s airspace at all and (c) as was actually an attempted satellite launch, not a missile test, as made out by the Japanese media.
Now while I am a strong supporter of Japan and no fan of the DPRK, the facts are the facts. Within 10 days of the “shocking missile test,” Ichiro Taniguchi, the Lion of Melco, was briefing the Cabinet on what was to become IGS. For more on this, please read In Defense of Japan.
But it was more of the same in 2009 when the nation in April attempted the 
launch of Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 aboard an Unha-2 rocket carrying the satellite, following this with two rounds of missile tests in July 2009 and then a probably partially successful nuclear test in October. A busy year for everyone, and provocation that has helped Japan to bolster its SM-3 fleet to six ships.
In a perverse sense, the latest launch looks right on schedule. In order to prop up the 3rd incarnation of the Kim Dynasty, the DPRK needed a quick win in its poker strategy diplomacy of threat, bluff, and (insincere) concession cycle. On what levels the events of the last two months are wins for the regime vary; if they get the food and launch the satellite, it will buy the new regime a lot of time perhaps. If the perfidious Yankie and, etc., imperialists “renegade” on the deal, and the satellite is triumphantly launched (whether it will or not, it will still triumphantly succeed in glorious honor of what not, of course, right) then it still provides glue to hang the new regime together on. Oh the poor suffering people.
All this of course is grist for the mill for Japan and is, ahem, unlikely to disincentivize Japan from pushing forward with EW and better BMD.
Update: This is from Reuters: Launch called a ‘deal-breaker
The U.S. State Department issued the following statement, March 16:
“North Korea’s announcement that it plans to conduct a missile launch in direct violation of its international obligations is highly provocative. UN Security Council Resolutions 1718 and 1874 clearly and unequivocally prohibit North Korea from conducting launches that use ballistic missile technology. Such a missile launch would pose a threat to regional security and would also be inconsistent with North Korea’s recent undertaking to refrain from long-range missile launches. We call on North Korea to adhere to its international obligations, including all relevant UN Security Council Resolutions. We are consulting closely with our international partners on next steps. U.S. now says it will not send food aid to North Korea if it goes ahead with the long-range rocket launch, and U.N. Security Council members said it may violate sanctions.”
The DPRK argues that satellite launches are part of a peaceful space program that is exempt from international disarmament obligations, but according to Reuters, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. now had “grave concerns” about the Feb. 29 agreement under which the North agreed with the U.S. to nuclear concessions and a moratorium on long-range missile tests in return for 240,000 tons of food aid.
Nuland said a rocket launch would call into question North Korea’s good faith. She said that during the negotiations for the U.S.-North Korea agreement, “we made clear unequivocally that we considered that any satellite launch would be a deal-breaker.
Expect a third nuclear test!
Posted by japanspace on March 16, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/taepodon-trigger-3-dprk-to-attempt-3rd-satellite-shot-third-time-lucky/
This is part II of work that I was doing last year on ASNARO/NEXTAR that I forgot to upload. It’s relevant because of the big breakthrough in space ODA to Vietnam. Soon to be repeated in Thailand, if reports are true!
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 
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-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.
ASNARO Delayed but far from Doomed!
Posted by japanspace on March 7, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/old-update-on-asnaro/
Japan Space Policy 