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/
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.
Posted by japanspace on July 20, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/japan-sets-up-space-policy-commission/
Ironically, just as my second piece in Space Quarterly came out on December 1, the SHSP’s Expert Committee (宇宙開発戦略専門調査会) chaired by MHI Chairman Kazuo Tsukuda had just (November 30) come out with a pre-final version of the compromises reached between the Cabinet and MEXT over the makeup and powers of the 宇宙戦略室 (Space Strategy Office) to be set up in the Cabinet Office!
Posted by japanspace on March 6, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/space-quarterly-2-a-battle-looms-for-japans-space-program/
2011年4月19日
This was one of the more important interviews I had back in the day when I was working on getting Stanford University to try to understand the scale of the changes that were occurring in Japan’s strategic thinking in terms of beginning to show deployment of Japan’s dual-use technologies- when some of the recessed hedge thinking started edging toward…
…let’s put it a different way:- and the dual-use aspect of Japan’s space development strategy started becoming the subject of polite conversation.
Basically the story is that I’d realized it had been on the cards ever since the 1998 “Taepodon flyover,” which Saadia and I call the Taepondon Trigger, when Melco handed me the pre-prepared plans for what were going to become the IGS. Funny, that, wasn’t it?
However, when I pitched to Saadia back in 2003 back in the Okura Hotel’s breakfast bar that Japan was going to militarize its space development, there was concern from her that I was going to go too far too quickly. And our first version of the book in 2005 that predicted what was going to happen (I was about 95% right, if you could put a figure on it, as it turned out) was dismissed out of hand first time round because it didn’t fit the frame. But all I was doing was applying Dick Samuel’s scholarship from beyond the aerospace sector to the space…
First meeting Takeo Kawamura in 2006 was a vital step in plugging into the fundamental changes occurring with the Kawamura Initiative (IDOJ, pp.38) that we documented in In Defense of Japan. Basically I’d gotten a heads up from Kazuto Suzuki, who played a vital role in promoting and drafting one of the key strategic changes in Japan’s normalization, the Basic Law.
Takeo Kawamura is one of those great people that you get to meet in your life who care about what it means and will take the extra step to put it out. I was there to put the message out to an international audience that someone cared, and he did, and I did, and that was enough.
I remember back in Feb 2004 during one of my many private audiences with Mazakasu Iguchi when he’d told me…you know, they thought they’d checked everything, right down to the last bolt…they’d cleaned out MHI at Nagoya and they were now pristine clean and ready…but Nissan, they’d forgot Nissan. The bloody solid boosters. I can still remember Iguchi Sensei thumping his desk in exasperation.
It was about the same time that Takeo Kawamura, then MEXT Minister, realized he’d been dealt a dud hand. SAC was supposed to be in control of MEXT, or was it CSTP in control of everything? Nobody really knew. That was the point. Everybody got blamed, but nobody took the rap. Kawamura realized he was just a figurehead, and that space development was on bureaucratic autopilot. Whatever you felt about Ryutaro Hashimoto at the time, he did really have some sort of guts to try to change things. So Takeo Kawamura stepped up to the plate. The rest is, as you might say, recent history 
.
Kawamura under the Aso Premiership was one of the most important reasons why the SHSP was able to set up the 宇宙開発戦略専門調査会 (Experts Committee) and 宇宙開発利用体制検討ワーキンググループ (Reorganization Expert’s Committee) and 宇宙活動に関する法制検討ワーキンググループ (Legal Research Committee) quickly.
Posted by japanspace on March 5, 2012
https://japanspace.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/interview-with-former-chief-cabinet-secretary-takeo-kawamura/
Japan Space Policy 