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The Decline of Japan's Space Program
By Paul Kallender
Special to SPACE.com
posted: 07:00 am ET
27 June 2000
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japan_space_000626The Japanese space program is undergoing a major reorganization in the wake of six major failures in the past six years. In 1994, with the successful launch of the H 2 rocket, Japan appeared to be on track to achieving status as a major spacefaring nation. Since the mid-1970s, the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) had successfully launched 30 rockets. The H 2 launch on April 2, 1994, set the stage for Japan's plans to develop an un-piloted space shuttle. 
Watch the video of the April 2, 1994 launch of the H-II_1F rocket.
NASDA had become a force to be reckoned with, an organization capable of building the Japanese Experiment Module -- the nations contribution to the International Space Station (ISS) project. And unlike its international counterparts -- the United States and Russia in particular -- Japan looked to deliver its module on time. But six years -- and six major program failures later -- Japans effort to join the elite club has stalled. Caught in a conundrum of competing priorities, its rapid ascent along the space industrys demanding learning curve has twisted into a spiral of doubt. In August 1994 Japan's experimental communication satellite ETS 6 was lost in space. The failure, NASDAs first, came as a terrible shock, but it was only one in a pattern that has plagued the agency: In 1996, a shuttle prototype was lost during testing. A satellite failed in 1997 and since 1998, NASDA's once mighty rocket fleet has betrayed the organization with a series of glitches and failures. But for a space program whose origins are as humble as they are inspiring, the setbacks may not be as dire as outside observers believe. Tsuki to Tsuppon or "the turtle to the moon" In 1955, the father of Japanese rocketry, Hideo Itokawa launched his 9-inch (23-centimeter) "pencil" across a concrete-reinforced firing range in suburban Tokyo, initiating Japans post-war rocket development. 
The "pencil" rocket Following this a coterie of Itokawas students at the University of Tokyo, along with the Ministry of Education (MoE) went on to form the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). It launched Japans first satellite, the bulbous vase-like Ohsumi, in February 1970. 
The Ohsumi satellite Thirty years later, ISAS has developed an international reputation in X-ray astronomy. With a staff of a few hundred scientists and about $220 million a year to work with, the institute has developed its own series of solid-fueled rockets and, on July 4 1998, even managed to launch the worlds first non-U.S., non-Russian interplanetary probe, Nozomi (Hope), to Mars. 
Hideo Itokawa at work Japans space program might have remained a small, yet meritorious, science program but for Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon. It was the Apollo program that inspired Japan to develop a second, mutually exclusive industrial development program that has divided resources and talents ever since. Founded the October following Apollo 11 -- and placed under the MoEs main budget rival, the Science and Technology Agency (STA) -- the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) was charged by Prime Minister Eisaku Sato to make Japan a major space power. Recalling the era, former NASDA president Isao Uchida once neatly summed up the scale of the task by reference to an ancient Japanese proverb, "Tsuki to Tsuppon." "Tsuki" is the moon and "Tsuppon" is a turtle that looks up uncomprehendingly at our nearest neighbor. NASDA bounds forward Kicking off with help from the likes of Ford Aerospace and rocketry copied from early Delta technologies, NASDA bounded forward. In September 1975, NASDA launched its own Sputnik -- the 170-pound (77 kilogram), Engineering Test Satellite 1 (ETS 1), called Kiku (Chrysanthemum), 620 miles (1000 kilometers) into orbit aboard its N 1 rocket. Nineteen years and 30 perfect launches after Kiku, on April 2, 1994, the agency debuted its cryogenically fueled H 2 and launched a reentry experiment. This amounted to a first step toward developing its un-piloted space shuttle. By the mid 1990s, NASDA had become a thousand-strong army of administrators and engineers capable of building the Japan Experiment Module -- the nations sizeable contribution to the ISS, and delivering it on time. All looked well until August 28, 1994 when a malfunctioning kick motor sent the 2-ton experimental communication satellite ETS 6 whizzing into the Van Allen radiation belt. 
The ETS-6 satellite Another disaster soon followed. In 1996, NASDAs next project, the hypersonic shuttle prototyped HYFLEX sank in the Pacific Ocean. In June 1997 the 3.5-ton flagship Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS) said goodbye when its 85-foot- (26-meter-) long, but millimeter-thin solar array twisted up like taffy 10 months into an international global climate study. 
The ADEOS Plagued by problems Three programs; three consecutive failures; $1.5 billion blown. Magnifying the problem: with the country five years into its worst post-war recession, the Japanese media began asking why NASDA was bothering at all. Until 1998, NASDAs satellites had stuttered, but not its rockets. In 1985, as the economy and national confidence began its Icarus-like rise, NASDA committed Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to develop the highly complex, cryogenically powered H 2 solely with Japanese technology. Japan scored it first commercial success in the space industry with the H 2-A. It was to have vindicated Japans whole space program, pushing the cutting-edge of Japanese industrial technology into the new millennium. 
The H 2 But the honeymoon ended in 1998. The H 2's LE 5-A second-stage, then its LE 7 first-stage engine failed on consecutive launches, respectively. A premature shutdown on the LE 5-A sent the COMETS communications satellite into the wrong orbit in 1998. Then, a faulty turbine on the LE 7 forced engineers to blow up the rocket and its air-traffic control MTSAT satellite last November 15. With the pride of Japans rocketry smashed to bits over the Pacific Ocean STAs deputy minister, then NASDA president Uchida resigned. NASDA cancelled H 2s eighth and final flight and -- more ominously -- Hughes pulled out of its contract to use the H 2-A. Officials and engineers dispute whether Japans space programs have tried to go too far too fast. Insiders agree that too many competing projects have outstripped limited budgets and engineering resources. When Japans ministries got serious with their space ambitions, the politicians decided to forget about NASDA. In 1996, the Fundamental Law -- the long-range space plan ISAS' and NASDA's oversight agency, the Space Activities Commission (SAC), draws up every decade or so -- had committed Japan to establishing a permanent, staffed moon base by 2020. Also in 1996, the Confederation of Japanese Industries called for a 10-percent year-on-year budget increase to allow NASDA to handle the burden. Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto responded by freezing it. Nobody wants the job Now, many observers agree on one point: NASDA just cant handle its commitments. A recent international peer review ending last year concurred with this conclusion. But policy makers appear divided on what should be done. Before the two H 2 failures, the STA asked NASDA to delay a whole series of projects, even as politicians demanded the agency rapidly build spy satellites in the wake of North Koreas ballistic missile launch. The H 2-A should have already flown its second mission this year, but so worried is SAC of further failure, it has grounded the rocket until at least next February. Simultaneously, SAC is also drawing up a new Fundamental Law which may commit Japan to develop a spaceplane. So daunting are NASDAs problems, according to one insider, that the agencys presidency remains vacant because nobody wants the job. And next January 1, the MoE and STA are supposed to merge. Only recently drawn together to cooperate on the Selene moon lander mission, the two sides still insist they must maintain their separate, competitive development paths. Rumors now fly that NASDA will be broken up and responsibility for communications and commercial satellite development devolved to other agencies. Only a full-scale piloted space program, says one highly placed insider, will halt the present confusion of priorities and recover the momentum built during the 1970 to 1994 period. Who will do what, and how much money there will be, is now under discussion at SAC.
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