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/
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/
For a treat, how about looking at what a real Japanese bill looks like. Story below!
Rather surprisingly early, the bill (properly called 内閣府設置法等の一部を改正する法律案) to enact the pertinent points of the 2008 Basic Law was sent to the Diet on February 14, with optimists considering that as it is tied to this year’s General Space Activities Budget request, it will be passed. My sources in the SHSP put the chances at 50/50 and Matsui Sensei is hopeful- tying the reforms to (a) the QZSS project and (b) the budget request, were critical parts of the Expert’s Committee in the SHSP last year to finally get the business sorted. Very practical, for a very tricky project that has gone through three years of twists and turns.
Understandably the Japanese media focused on a summary of the main points; for example here the Sankei, while the Mainichi also thought it prudent to add a 解説 (explanation) for the public. The Yomiuri and Nikkei also managed to capture this critical event for the future of Asia’s space development and competition. I have a much more detailed academic article coming out later in the year, but here is a summary of something I filed on the bill.
Space Bill Submitted to Japanese Diet
A bill to fundamentally restructure the control of Japan’s space program and remove the restriction on the nation’s main space agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) from developing military space programs, was submitted to Japan’s lower house, the House of Representatives, Feb. 14.
The Cabinet Office Restructuring and Reform Law will enable the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office to set up a Space Strategy Office that is headed by the Japanese Prime Minister while scrapping the Space Activities Commission, which currently controls JAXA. The Strategy Office will assume control of all of Japan’s space planning, program and budget control, including that of JAXA through a new Strategic Space Committee set up in the Office, also chaired by the Prime Minister, said Takafumi Matsui, Emeritus Professor of Tokyo University and chairman of the advisory committee that proposed the law.
A key part of the bill changes JAXA’s Law of 2003, when the agency was established, which, in Article 4 (Objectives of the Agency), contains the stipulation that JAXA’s space programs be “for peaceful purposes only.” The new bill brings JAXA’s law into line with the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which allows for the nonagressive military use of space, and Japan’s Space Basic Law Article 14: “The state shall take the necessary measures to promote space development and use to endure international peace and security as well as to contribute to the national security of Japan.”
Matsui said Feb. 17 that the bill fulfills a critical stipulation of the Space Basic Law of 2008, which mandated that policy, programmatic and budgeting control of Japan’s space programs, which are funded by a number of ministries, be assumed by the Cabinet Office. Currently JAXA accounts for about 60% of Japan’s space budget, and is controlled by SAC; both are part of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). JAXA’s budget and programs will now also be controlled by the Cabinet Office’s Space Strategy Office, he said.
Matsui said that the bill should come into law by the end of this fiscal year, March 31, so the Cabinet Office can immediately start setting up the new office. Typically bills approved by the lower house in Japan are rubber stamped by the upper house, the House of Councilors, he said.
Here is the Yomiuri’s coverage: 
Posted by japanspace on March 7, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/bill-to-establish-the-%e5%86%85%e9%96%a3%e5%ba%9c%e5%ae%87%e5%ae%99%e6%88%a6%e7%95%a5%e5%ae%a4-space-strategy-office-sent-to-the-diet/
The long struggles of the Mk.2 SHSP reached a critical period over the summer and fall of 2011. After having seen SHSP fundamentally unplugged following the DPJ election of Summer 2009, the SHPS effectively fell fallow through 2011 while it reabsorbed the DPJ’s new way of doing things. During the interregnum between May 2009, when it discussed the Basic Plan, the crucial Experts Committee did not start forging ahead until December 2010 under a group DPJ appointees.
In the meantime activist DPJ Minister for Space Development Seiji Maehara had convened an independent expert panel under Takafumi Matsui, Director of Chiba Institute of Technology’s Planetary Exploration Research Center, to come up with a fresh approach. And it did not disappoint: the “Matsui Plan” released 20 April 2010 recommended the setting up of a “Space Agency” within the Cabinet Office and the partial breakup of JAXA.
Subsequently the 14-member “Mk.2” Experts Committee, chaired by Yoshiyuki Kasai, former chairman of Central Japan Railway Company set to re-tackle implementation of the Basic Law, constituting the QZSS Utilization Investigation Working Group (QZSS WG), which was to to be used to set a precedent for allowing the Cabinet Office to establish control of a major space development program, with a target to finish by August 2011. In April the QZSS WG recommended that Japan go ahead with a robust QZSS system, leading to a series of steps toward the Cabinet Office taking control of Japan’s space program from MEXT and JAXA.
Posted by japanspace on March 5, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/japan-edges-toward-new-space-agency/
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.
Posted by japanspace on March 5, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/michibiki-finally-licence-to-guide/
More Spy Bird Cash for Melco
Posted by japanspace on March 4, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/personal-interview-with-seiji-maehara-and-spare-igs/
Japan Space Policy 