Reuters reported yesterday that the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the ruling party, “is moving to end a decades-old ban on military involvement in space development”. An LDP panel believes that getting the Japanese military more involved in space, including funding the development of military satellites, “would boost Japan’s space industry while improving the country’s ability to defend itself.” This move is a little puzzling since Japan already has military satellites: the country launched two pairs of reconnaissance satellites, called “Information Gathering Satellites”, in 2003 (although one pair failed to reach orbit because of a launch vehicle failure); another pair is slated for launch later this year. It’s not clear what other types of military satellites the country would need: communications is one option, but it may be more cost-effective to simply purchase transponder time on commercial satellites. That may be why an AFP article about this topic calls the proposed law—which the Diet will not take up until next year—”symbolic”.
