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A New Direction For Japan’s Space Program?

Here is the longer version of the previous article:

Aviation Week & Space Technology   May 06, 2013 , p. 36

Paul Kallender-Umezu
Tokyo

Japanese space programs face strict new reality

Et Tu, Tokyo?

The first order of business for new Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) leader Naoki Okumura will be to reorient his nation’s space program from advanced development to activities that may produce some commercial return on investment.

EpsilonBased on the latest five-year “Basic Plan” for space promulgated by the Office of National Space Policy (ONSP), the new direction is putting pressure on JAXA to cut, postpone or reduce to research and development some or most of the agency’s flagship science, technology and manned spaceflight programs.

Some or all of the satellites planned for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, the HTV-R pressurized sample-and-crew-return mini-shuttle and the H-X/H-3 launcher programs could face cancellation, concedes JAXA’s Hiroshi Sasaki, senior advisor in the strategic planning and management department.

“For 20 years, so much money has been spent by JAXA [and its predecessor, Nasda] on R&D, but there has been very little commercial return,” says Hirotoshi Kunitomo, ONSP director.

Under legislation passed last year, JAXA policy is now controlled by the 23-member ONSP, which was created at the end of a process begun in the middle of the past decade to wrest control of space planning from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), which controlled 60% of Japan’s roughly 350 billion yen ($3.75 billion) annual government space budget through its oversight of JAXA.

With a charter for change, ONSP reports directly to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has final say over which of JAXA’s programs are funded. In turn, ONSP’s Basic Plan resets Japan’s space policy to three mutually reinforcing goals: promoting national security; boosting industry; and securing the country’s technological independence for all major space applications from reliance on foreign agencies—providing this supports the first two goals.

Kunitomo asserts that ONSP will continue to support frontier science as a lower priority, as long as it is based on the sort of low-cost, high-impact space science designed by JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science , embodied by the Hayabusa asteroid sample-return mission. But former high-priority goals to promote environmental monitoring and human space activities and put robots on the Moon now have been moved down the list and must fight for funding, Kunitomo says.

Instead, only one of the three ONSP core programs—Japan’s launch vehicles—is run by JAXA.

The top-priority program, run by the ONSP, is to build out the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), Japan’s regional GPS overlay, with a budget approved for maintaining a constellation of four QZSS satellites by around 2018. A post-2020 build-out to a seven-satellite constellation will then give Japan its own independent regional positioning, navigation and timing capability.

The second is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (Asean) newly sanctioned disaster management network run by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). This requires a constellation of Earth-observing satellites equipped with X- and L-band radar and hyperspectral sensors to monitor Southeast Asia. Japan will provide at least the first three satellites, with more funding through foreign aid packages. Vietnam has signed up for two X-band satellites. The system’s once-daily global-revisit policy requires a minimum constellation of four satellites that will need to be replenished every five years or so.

The third priority has JAXA focusing on improving the current H-2A launch vehicle in partnership with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) while continuing improvement of its new low-cost, launch-on-demand Epsilon solid-fuel rocket for smaller payloads. A variant of the Epsilon will be uprated to around 1,800 kg (3,970 lb.) from 1,200 kg to low Earth orbit, matching that of its predecessor M-V launch vehicle.

JAXA projects that fall outside the Basic Plan’s goals but already were funded for development will continue if it would be counter-productive to stop them, says Kunitomo. These include launching the upcoming ALOS-2 land-observing system and the Global Precipitation Measurement/Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar satellites. The Greenhouse Gases-Observing Satellite-2 (Gosat-2) will also continue, as it is funded by the Environment Ministry, not MEXT/JAXA.

But under a Feb. 25 budget plan drawn up by Kunitomo, several programs face close scrutiny, including the HTV-R sample-return mission, any future launches of the HTV-R transfer vehicle beyond the current seven planned to 2016, lunar exploration and all of JAXA’s follow-on environmental missions.

The ONSP’s logic for reauditing the HTV-R is harsh. As it is too expensive to commercialize, the H-2B will be ditched as dead once its HTV duties are finished. The HTV’s only purpose is to service the International Space Station, and Japan must minimize its costs, so logically the HTV, HTV-R and H-2B have no future beyond 2016 and the HTV’s seventh flight. Indeed, one industry official tells Aviation Week that Japan may launch at most two post-2016 missions.

The Basic Plan mandates that the agency’s already-low-priority environmental-monitoring programs undergo a “focus and reselection process.” This means the proposed GCOM-C, EarthCARE cloud radar mission and ALOS-3 electro-optical missions , the second main plank of Japan’s flagship international cooperation programs with NASA and the European Space Agency , will struggle for funding, and not all will make it, says Kunitomo. But a reconfigured ALOS-3 that can adapt to the Asean disaster management network at a fraction of its projected price would be more acceptable, he concedes.

As for the putative H-X, Kunitomo says ONSP questions the need to spend $2 billion and 8-10 years to develop it. JAXA and MHI say the program requires a launch system that no one can guarantee will be commercially competitive.

Industry’s reaction to all of this appears to range from stress to relief to anxiety. Masaru Uji, a general manager at the Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies, says QZSS and Asean network programs will provide steady, long-term business for Japan’s two satellite integrators: Mitsubishi Electric, which is supplying its DS2000 bus for the QZSS; and NEC Corp. , with its METI-funded 300-kg-class multipurpose Asnaro bus for the network.

The aerospace trade association figures show that for 2011, Japan’s total space sales—both overseas and domestic, and including all subcontractor revenues—amounted to only ¥265 billion ($2.7 billion). That is down from a peak of ¥379 billion in 1998, with overseas commercial sales accounting for only the low teens in revenue and JAXA programs taking the lion’s share of domestic business.

The Basic Plan “is moving in the right direction. You can’t build a business without infrastructure,” says Satoshi Tsuzukibashi, director of the Industrial Technology Bureau at Keidanren, Japan’s most powerful business lobby.

Uji is particularly pleased for NEC, which has been awarded a so-called private finance initiative to develop the QZSS ground segment, spreading steady payments to the company for at least the next 15 years. Anticipating the Basic Plan this January, NEC announced a ¥9.9 billion investment in a new 9,000-sq.-meter (97,000-sq.-ft.) satellite facility in Fuchu, west of Tokyo, to build a fleet of Asnaro satellites, which it also hopes to market commercially under the Nextar brand, says Yasuo Horiuchi, senior manager of NEC’s satellite business development office.

Similarly, Mitsubishi Electric said in March that it completed a doubling of its satellite production capacity to eight buses annually at its Kamakura Works. Having already sold four of the 13 DS2000-based satellites to commercial satellite services customers, increased volume spurred by the QZSS program will create further efficiencies and cost competitiveness, says Executive Director Eiichi Hikima.

MHI may face a different challenge, however. Ryo Nakamura, director of H-2A-2B launch services in the company’s Space Systems Div., says an improved H-IIA may gain one commercial contract in 2015-16. This may convince ONSP to fund the H-X (or H-3), whose first stage was supposed to use an LE-X engine with a high-thrust expander bleed cycle. Before the Basic Plan , the rocket was slated in JAXA’s road map to undergo the first of its three test launches around 2018. Hidemasa Nakanishi, manager of strategy and planning at the Space Systems Div., thinks it is Japan ‘s duty as an advanced spacefaring nation to complete its participation in the International Space Station, thus learning pressurized return technologies through the HTV-R .

JAXA’s Sasaki points out that nothing has been cut yet, and JAXA is going to battle to preserve as much of its “traditional” programs as it can in the relevant subcommittees though the spring. Key decisions will come in June.

1 Comment
by japanspace on May 18, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Adeos-2, Advanced Solid Rocket (ADR), ALOS-2, ASEAN Disaster Management Network, ASNARO, Daichi, GCOM-W1, H-2A, H-2B, H-3, H-X, Hayabusa, Hayabusa-2, Hiroshi Yamakawa, In Defense of Japan: From the Market to the Military in Space Policy, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Japan Space Budget, Japan Space Development, Japanese GPS, Japanese Space Policy Basic Plan, JAXA, Keidanren, Kounotori (HTV), METI, MEXT, MHI, MHI Launch Services, Michibiki, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, NEXTAR, ODA Space Diplomacy, Office of National Space Policy, ONSP, QZSS, SHSP, Society Of Japanese Aerospace Companies, Space Activities Act, Space Activities Commission, Space ODA, Space PFI, Space Policy, Space Policy Commission, Space Strategy Office, Strategic Headquarters for Space Policy (, Strategic Headquarters for Space Policy (SHSP), Uchusenryaku Shitsu, UNISEC, USEF: ASNARO, 内閣衛星情報センター, 内閣府, 宇宙基本計画, 宇宙戦略室, 宇宙政策, 宇宙政策委員会, 情報収集衛星
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Posted by japanspace on May 18, 2013

https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2013/05/18/a-new-direction-for-japans-space-program/

Japan Sets Up Space Policy Commission

The revolution- or perhaps evolution- is at hand! After a week of waiting by this author about actually who will be in charge of Japan’s new era of space policy making, the names have finally been published.

On Friday, the Cabinet Office, now in charge of Japan’s new space policy structure following the June 20 passing of the law that allowed the Cabinet Office to take control of Japanese space policy, published the names of the all-important Space Policy Commission (宇宙政策委員会).

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda flanked by State Minister for Space Motohisa Furukawa and Takeo Kawamura, who started the whole process of reforming Japan’s space policy, unveils the official Kanban for the Space Strategy Office

The Space Policy Commission consists of seven members that will function as the highest consultative body to the space and prime minister on program authorization, budget and schedule, according to according to Takafumi Matsui, Emeritus Professor at The University of Tokyo, and chief architect of the establishment of the new office, who is also a member.

The  Commission is to be chaired by Yoshiyuki Kasai, former chairman of Central Japan Railway Company, and fellow key members of the  “Mk.II” Experts Committee of the Strategic Headquarters for Space Policy (SHSP) which was built on the original May 2010 Matsui Report.

Joining the Commission  are Hiroshi Yamakawa, Secretary-General of the SHSP,   Shinichi Nakasuka, a University of Tokyo scientist and the father of Japan’s university-led microsatellite program, and Setusko Aoki, Professor of Policy Management at Keio University, a leading expert on space law, and a key member of the LDP-era SHSP that got so close to developing Japan’s Space Activities Act in 2009.

The move comes rapidly after the Cabinet Office  July 12 set up the Space Strategy Office, the new executive body that will assume control of the nation’s space programs, headed by current State Minister for Space Development Motohisa Furukawa.

The Space Strategy Office replaces a mix of institutions that controlled various parts of Japan’s space program, most notably the Space Activities Commission (SAC), a former committee in the Ministry of Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), that formerly controlled the budget and program planning of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japan’s main space development agency that absorbs about 60% of the nation’s national space budget.

The Space Strategy Office’s formal establishment comes just weeks after the Upper House of Japan’s Diet June 20 passed a raft of legislation to set up the office, abolish SAC, and change JAXA’s founding law to allow it to develop military space programs in line with international norms under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, among other things, Matsui said July 13.

Matsui said the Space Strategy Office will become functional by the end of July in time for taking control of Japan’s annual space budget request.

“Everything is as I, we planned. We have to get it functional by in time for the budget, negotiations with the Ministry of Finance,” Matsui said.

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by japanspace on July 20, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Cabinet Office, Hiroshi Yamakawa, In Defense of Japan: From the Market to the Military in Space Policy, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Japan Space Budget, Japan Space Development, Japanese GPS, JAXA, METI, MEXT, Peaceful Purposes Resolution (PPR), Setusko Aoki, SHSP, Space Activities Act, Space Activities Commission, Space Policy, Space Policy Commission, Strategic Headquarters for Space Policy (, Strategic Headquarters for Space Policy (SHSP), Takafumi Matsui, Takeo Kawamura, Uchu Cho, Uchusenryaku Shitsu, Yoshihiko Noda, 内閣府, 宇宙戦略室, 宇宙政策委員会
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Posted by japanspace on July 20, 2012

https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/japan-sets-up-space-policy-commission/

Taepodon Trigger #3: DPRK to attempt 3rd Satellite Shot- Third Time Lucky?

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

US: NKorea planned rocket launch 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!

4 Comments
by japanspace on March 16, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in ASNARO, BMD, CSIC, DPRK Missile, Dual Use Technology: Missile, Early Warning, FPS-3, FPS-5, IGS, In Defense of Japan, In Defense of Japan: From the Market to the Military in Space Policy, Information Gathering Satellite, JADGE, Japan Space Development, Japanese GPS, June's 2+2, Kwangmyongsong-1, Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3, Michibiki, Mitsubishi Electric, PAC-3, QZSS, SERVIS-3, Taepodon, Taepodon Shock, Taepodon Trigger, Uncategorized
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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/

Japan Moves To Relax Restrictions on Military Space Development

Here is a story that I did just before the law was sent to the Diet on Feb 14 (see later article) about (finally, after three years!) the Cabinet Office moving to enact the Basic Law of 2008 and move to take (partial- just how this may spin out, see later article!) control of Japan’s space development, specifically with controlling Japan’s regional GPS system, the QZSS…

Like most media, I had to follow the headline, but have reserved deeper analysis for my research, to be published later this year…of course none of this is a surprise to readers of “In Defense of Japan“….

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by japanspace on March 6, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Cabinet Office, Dual Use Technology: Missile, Dual Use Technology: Spy Satellite, In Defense of Japan, In Defense of Japan: From the Market to the Military in Space Policy, Information Gathering Satellite, Japanese GPS, JAXA, JMOD, METI, MEXT, Peaceful Purposes Resolution (PPR), QZSS, SHSP, Space Activities Act, Yoshihiko Noda
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Posted by japanspace on March 6, 2012

https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/japan-moves-to-relax-restrictions-on-military-space-development/

Japan Aims To Build Own GPS by 2020

This is the next critical breakthrough when the Mk.2 SHSP Experts Committee finally managed to get the all-important 閣議決定 (kakugi kettei, Cabinet decision) for Japan to push ahead and develop the QZSS system, and a critical part of the Matsui plan to use the QZSS program as a way to set a precedent for the Cabinet Office to take power and budget away from MEXT in order to take control of the troubled program. Remember back in June, MEXT had steadfastly opposed the idea of loosing 20-30% of its budget to the Cabinet Office to run the QZSS program. What has changed? Leadership by the Noda Administration. Yoshihiko Noda, as I’ve said in past posts, has been a strong supporter of space development and led the DPJ’s committee on supporting the bipartisan Basic Law of 2008.

Before any legal changes to be announced to enable the Cabinet Office to take control of the QZSS, there are other still thorny issues about who is going to share how much power in the reform of Japan’s space administration. As the Experts Committee had set itself an August deadline to resolve the issue, the MEXT opposition is still strong. However, my sources in the SHSP are confident that the issues an be sorted out by year-end.

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by japanspace on March 6, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Cabinet Office, Defense News, Japan Space Budget, Japan Space Development, Japanese GPS, JAXA, QZSS, SHSP, Space Activities Act, Yoshihiko Noda
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Posted by japanspace on March 6, 2012

https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/japan-aims-to-build-own-gps-by-2020/

U.S. Space Command Review of In Defense of Japan

2011年6月29日

Saadia and I were complimented indeed to have In Defense of Japan reviewed by no less than U.S. Space Command’s High Frontier Journal.

This follows on from a favorable review by no less than Foreign Affairs in the January/February 2011 edition.

The review by Dr. Rick W. Sturdevant, deputy historian of Air Force Space Command, concludes with the assessment that our book might serve as “a model for historically grounded analyses of other national space policies and programs.”

We hope so, and that was the point.

We felt (and feel) that Japan’s highly successful strategic policy of technonationalism  is very poorly understood, and Japan’s space program is poorly served by mass media and its tropes.

Saying that, Time has been a notable exception.

In the age of Twittering and instant recycling of PR,  the need for good, old-fashioned research and sourcing of information becomes  ever more important.

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by japanspace on March 5, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Foreign Affairs, High Frontier Journal, Japan Space Budget, Japan Space Development, Japanese GPS, JAXA
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Posted by japanspace on March 5, 2012

https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/u-s-space-command-review-of-in-defense-of-japan/

Michibiki: Finally Licence to Guide

2011年6月15日

After 15 years and twists and turns that made IHI/Nissan’s bid for the J-1A->J-2->GX look like a skip around the block, Michibiki will finally become an openly accepted part of Japan’s emergent space-based national security structure.

There has always been a strong element of “aw-shucks, you don’t say” about the real purpose of the QZSS system, which is to provide a highly advanced (15cm to 1m positioning accuracy) sovereign (encrypted = military signal) positioning (read targeting) local (read regional) GPS system, that’s useful for…the same uses as the original GPS and GLONASS systems.

Although the what become the present system originated out of Melco and the old CRL (Communications Research Laboratory, now NICT) in 1996/7. I can still remember the pitch, and then the huge wrangle between the STA and MOFA with the U.S. over it. I covered this for Space News what, 14 and 13 years ago now.

In a recent conversation I had with a former GSDF general who is now a consultant for a major Japanese IT firm consulting the MOD to fight Japan’s cyberwars against 30,000 state-funded Chinese hackers, making sure QZSS has targeting capability has been formally on the table in inter-ministerial meetings (well at that time the MOD was the JDA) since at least 2005. In fact, retired general “X,” as we’ll call him, brought QZSS up unilaterally. The topic we were discussing was  the utility of UAVs and network-centric warfare and the limits of interoperability. The main issue for X was concern that Japan be capable of building a “rec’n’rocket” Global Hawk capability as well as a tactical capability so that battlefield, operations and strategic roles can be fulfilled. And then, as he put it, “there is the space element” of which QZSS or its successor will no doublt play a role…

2005. 2005. Well, well, well. Wasn’t that  time when the now-defunct ASBC (Advanced Satellite Business Corporation), who were responsible for window-dressing QZSS as an orbital Wall-Mart communications and broadcasting and “man nabi” system, gave me a very 玉虫色 (tamamushiiro) response about if they were talking to the JDA about the QZSS’s dual-uses.

The business model for QZSS as pounded out by ASBC didn’t make sense. Why would we need man-nabi from a keitai with an expensive chip plugged into a space-based system when nabi functions were already commonplace. Why would we need broadcasting when we already had BS* by NHK, and SKY PerfecTV washing our brains out with hundreds of channels of digital junk. SkyPerfect being the consolidated rump of what had been  DirecTV, PerfecTV and JSky B competing in Japan’s limited market, and JSAT competing with Mitsubishi’s SCC as a platform service providers. (SCC lost and was merged into JSAT). So there goes your business model.

As we make clear in In Defense of Japan, “..although the QZSS/Michibiki itself is a product of the 2000s, the system as a whole represents the culmination of eff orts to develop a regional GPS system dating back to the late 1980s.  Like a lot of the other space- based technologies discussed in this book, this one has had a long trajectory…”

More precisely, like everyone else, Japan realized that the space-based force muliplier technology and infrastruture, with gave birth to RMA, completely outdated militaries not similarly equipped in practically anything other than low-intensity conflicts. Thus the gearing up by Europe (Galileo), China (Beidou) (not exactly friends those two with the snooty French keeping the receipe for roast canard separate while the Chinese attempt to spice the whole affair up with illiberal doses of General Tao’s Sauce)  and and Japan (Michibiki) to develop its own PNT capability in case it was denied access or remained dependent on U.S. technology.

In the 1990s, the STA, METI, and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), looked to develop a positioning system that would cover a large swathe of Asia, from the Kurile Islands to the north, China to the east, and Guam in the south. In March 1997 the then STA asked what was then NASDA (now JAXA) to move ahead with research into the highly accurate, satellite-mounted atomic clocks needed for a high-precision GPS. This was billed at the time as a matter of “economic security.” As anyone who understands Japan’s nomenclature, “economic security” is a fine bedfellow of “security” and his old chum “national security.”  The facinating story of how Michibiki got developed is summarized in In Defense of Japan. Meanwhile, as my recent story in Space News below tries to make clear, the curtains have been drawn open, and people in Japan are starting to talk about Michibiki’s national security role more openly.

*BS means Broadcasting Satellite in Japan, not “the other” meaning.

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by japanspace on March 5, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in DS2000, In Defense of Japan, In Defense of Japan: From the Market to the Military in Space Policy, Japanese GPS, JAXA, Melco, Michibiki, Mitsubishi Electric, QZSS, Space News
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Posted by japanspace on March 5, 2012

https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/michibiki-finally-licence-to-guide/

Moving Beyond A Zero-Sum Military Space Game

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 has an extensive shopping list of needs 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. But this will remain a wish-list until at least (a) MOD conducts negotiations with the U.S. (b) the next Mid-Term Defense Plan includes substantial funds for military space development, (c) The JAXA Law is amended to allow for for defensive military space development. The technologies are there (at least in theory) but the  institutional will, budget and legal issues remain significant barriers.

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

Thus Japan’s latest National Defense Program Guidelines – a planning document produced every five years  (see this survey by The Tokyo Foundation) — are 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.

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by japanspace on March 4, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in ASNARO, Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center (CSIC), CSIC, ETS-8, In Defense of Japan, In Defense of Japan: From the Market to the Military in Space Policy, Japanese GPS, Melco, Ministry of Defense, Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Peaceful Purposes Resolution (PPR), QZSS
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Posted by japanspace on March 4, 2012

https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/moving-beyond-a-zero-sum-military-space-game/

Japanese GPS: Next Milspace Step becomes “Official Reality”

The AFP this week has followed up  the Yomiuri story about Japan building its own GPS system, quoting an anonymous official in the SHSP.  What’s actually interesting about the story however is:

a) There is significant language drift and change in the the presentation of the information. It’s interesting to see that mainstream media is stressing the independence of the Michibiki. But ever since I was briefed on in in CRL labs in the mid 1990s, I’ve always understood it as a separate  or independent GPS system. At least the Yomiuri is acknowledging its real strategic purpose as a regional GPS system.

The launch of the fleet is the critical technological building block for when and when Japan does decide to deploy a regional GPS system. Of course, then missile guidance is a matter of course. Remember this  in addition to the already announced shopping list to develop independent Early Warning, military communications, signit and SSA capabilities by the MOD (which will remain a shopping list for at least the time being, for reasons I’ll explain in a later post), and plans to build a supplemental dual-use spy satellite constellation test bed (ASNARO) by METI, along with ORS capabilities led by Epsilon and attempts later to develop air-launch and SLBM technology by METI via its military space technology implementing agency USEF  (see Quis custodiet ipsos database administrators? ).

It was quite gratifying for the Yomiuri to be quite open about this fundamental step. Remember back in the mid-90s then then STA and JAXA, supported by Melco and CRL were strongly pushing independent GPS, but were leaned on by the U.S. and then hauled in to make sure the system was properly consulted. The QZSS saga is one of the more eventful and interesting stories of Japan’s space development where strategic technology development interests that I don’t have time to go into here, but is outlined in In Defense of Japan. For more details, I have articles in Space News going back to 1996. I recall meetings of meeting grumpy STA official grumbling about the frequency with which the U.S. was jamming things up: clipped wings? Golden cage? Background noise?

But remember, the key point is that originally what is now Michibiki was always seen as an independent Japanese GPS system even it was not characterized as such in the media or Japan’s space literature, for various purposes. In fact I remember attending SAC committee reviews of the  (now defunct) ASBC consortium’s attempts to sell the QZSS system for its business and broadcasting functionality  back in the early 2000s and noting how obviously facile and see-through they were. The purpose of Japan’s GPS is security first, security second, and security third.

b) The second suprise was the numbers. We have the Yomiuri quoting as many as six or seven satellites, whereas only four are needed to get the 15 cm to 1 meter accuracy needed. In fact the Basic Law is pretty vague on the number. There was a tremendous battle fought in 2008 by Meclo and Keidanren to get the projected numbers up to over five and it’s interesting to see that the government is quoting that Melco can build DS2000 buses tweaked for Michibiki off the Kamakura production line for 35 billion yen each. The concern is if Melco has rectified its power systems troubles that have affected several satellites downt the years including 2 IGS radar spysats and Midori-2. Let’s hope those junctions and batteries are double checked.

c) In a comcomitant article by the Yomiuri the talk of Michibiki being an Asian Standard when China has already launched its own 8-constellation military system. I attribute the Yomiuri’s rhetoric on this as a combination of window dressing and wishful thinking. The wounded national psyche so gently portrayed by Prof. Kenneth B.  Pyle in Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose appears to be coming into play here with the idea of a competition to be an Asian standard. There are a lot of things I could say, but in line with the main arguments of In Defense of Japan, it does not really matter because the strategic Michibiki technology development program will go ahead anyway.

d) Finally, finally, it appears that after two years of solid stalling by MEXT, things are finally moving.

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by japanspace on March 4, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Japanese GPS, Michibiki, QZSS, Uncategorized
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Posted by japanspace on March 4, 2012

https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/japanese-gps-next-milspace-step-becomes-official-reality/