Japan’s rocket launch, moon landing boost space ambitions

Felix Kim

Japan further elevated its status as a spacefaring nation with the launch of its next-generation H3 rocket in mid-February 2024 and by becoming the fifth country to achieve a lunar landing a month before. The milestones support Japan’s strategic objectives, including in defense, by showcasing technological prowess and contributing to a deterrence posture in space.

The H3 rocket launched from Tanegashima Space Center, about 1,000 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, and placed two satellites into orbit. The launch vehicle was developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and primary contractor Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). The test flight enables the program to proceed to commercial operations.

MHI can build up to six H3 rockets a year but plans to boost annual capacity to 10, Masayuki Eguchi, head of the company’s defense and space division, told Japan’s Nikkei Asia newspaper.

The H3 mission came on the heels of the lunar landing by Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) in late January. After initial difficulty generating power with its solar cells, SLIM has been sending images and data, and more lunar missions are planned, according to JAXA.

SLIM also carried SORA-Q, a baseball-size lunar robot developed by MHI and Takara Tomy, maker of the popular Transformer toys.

Japan “has steadily become a major player in space,” Dr. Jeffrey Hornung, a defense analyst with the Rand Corp., told FORUM. “This hits a sweet spot for Japan because it’s civilian in nature. It doesn’t touch on any of the military aspects that otherwise Japan has restrictions on. The private sector is heavily involved, along with a number of startups, and so I do think it’s important.”

Japan also is focusing on space situational awareness capabilities to protect its space assets, and those of its partners at NASA and the European Space Agency, from potential anti-satellite attacks and hazardous space debris, according to Hornung.

“Space situational awareness has a defense benefit because you’re able to do all the things you want to do and just keep track of where your adversaries are, but there’s no lethality involved,” he said.

Although JAXA collaborates with defense and research organizations to develop dual-use technologies, Tokyo adheres to the multilateral Missile Technology Control Regime, which seeks to prevent the proliferation of missile technology capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, the H3 and SLIM successes demonstrate the potential of dual-use rocket capability.

“This is important if Japan is serious about an independent kill chain,” Hornung said, referring to a phase-based concept that classifies offensive operations based on the stages of an attack in order to preempt such threats.

“It has to have very sophisticated capabilities from start to finish,” he said. “And one of those is the launch capabilities.”

Felix Kim is a FORUM contributor reporting from Seoul, South Korea.