TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japan's space program Thursday suffered a major blow after U.S. satellite maker, Hughes Space and Communications, terminated its contracts with the government following a series of embarrassing launch flops.

Last week, Isao Uchida, the head of the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) resigned to take responsibility for a series of accidents that have dealt a body blow to Japan's troubled space program.

Hughes, a subsidiary of Hughes Electronic Corp., had agreed to use Japanese rockets to launch 10 of its satellites at a cost of $836 million, the evening edition of the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper said.

"We have received the request to end the contract,'' said a spokesman for Rocket System Corp., a company mediating between the two sides. He declined to comment further.

Last November, Japanese scientists blew up a domestic H 2 rocket eight minutes after launch when it failed to find its proper path. In February 1998, Japan failed to launch a $557.3 million H 2 rocket.

Hughes had had the right to terminate the contract if Japan made two unsuccessful launches of its H 2 rockets, the newspaper said.

The space program has been plagued by high costs and a string of rocket failures has put its future in jeopardy.

For the first time, NASDA's draft budget for the next fiscal year has been cut by some $92.89 million from the previous year, although a hefty $1.58 billion still remains.

In addition to the November accident, which forced the quasi-governmental agency to abandon the H 2 rocket program, another rocket failed to put a satellite into orbit in February.

Hughes Electronics Corp. is a unit of General Motors Corp.