Here I am going to put up some excellent work by fellow space journalist and Japan space watcher Peter J. Brown in his blog Japanese in Space.

Back in 2010, in In Defense of Japan, From the Market to the Military in Space Policy  Saadia and I pointed out some interesting context for Japan’s Hyflex program: You can read excerpts here on Google Books from our chapter on Launch Vehicles.

Wired Danger Room recently ran a piece on the USAF’s X-37B space plane (A Year Later, Mysterious Space Plane Is Still in Orbit), a program that is raising much attention in the military space community, for obvious reasons. But look at the picture; this is not a picture of the X-37B, though at a glance you might be forgiven for thinking it was…

As Peter points out, Japan actually had a robotic prototype space plane, Hyflex, that successfully demonstrated many of the precursor technologies of the X-37B all the way back in 1996, launched aboard the J-1 rocket. An interesting combination of technologies indeed.

If you want to find out more about the Hyflex program, please take a look at Peter’s article, which was also featured in another site I am a fan of, Japan Security Watch as USAF HTV-2 Recalls Japan’s HYFLEX Program. Please also note that Saadia and I were perhaps the first to point out the implications of the Hyflex program in In Defense of Japan, From the Market to the Military in Space Policy .

So what happened to Hyflex? Well, that’s a long story. I’ll see if I can dig out some of my old Space News articles from the 1990s!