Japan seeks to ramp up launch activity
The Japanese government wants to sharply increase the number of launches despite struggles with both current and new launch vehicles.
In sessions at the Spacetide conference in Tokyo last week, Japanese government officials said the nation's space policy has a KPI, or key performance indicator, of 30 launches a year from the country by the early 2030s. That includes both government and commercial launches.
That goal is tied to another: increasing the percentage of Japanese satellite launches conducted domestically, said Jun Kazeki, director-general of the National Space Policy Secretariat. That percentage is currently about 50%, but the government wants to increase it to 60% to 70%.
That is an ambitious target because Japan, so far this year, has conducted just two orbital launches. An H3 rocket launched June 11 on a test flight of a new variant of the vehicle. That launch also served as a return to flight for the H3 family after the previous launch in December failed to place its payload, a navigation satellite, into orbit.
The other was the third flight of Kairos, a small launch vehicle developed by Space One, on March 4. That launch, like its two previous ones in March and December 2024, failed to reach orbit.
Despite the three failures, Space One is pressing ahead with the next Kairos launch, said Kozo Abe, an executive with the company, during a panel session at the conference. He did not disclose a schedule for that launch or the cause of the most recent failure.
"Next time, we are determined to make a great success, launching into orbit," he said in a translation of his Japanese remarks on the panel.
Abe added that his company is already thinking about how to scale up Kairos launches to help meet the KPI of 30 launches annually. That requires investment by more than just Space One.
"It's not sufficient that our company invests," he said. "The whole supply chain will have to be enhanced so they can contribute to the more frequent launches."
In order to justify those investments, he said the Japanese government needs to make clear its launch needs. "We need to have a solid demand," he said, stretching out at least five years to as many as eight years into the future. "If the government codifies the demand for this amount, I will be able to ask other suppliers to invest more."
"We will try to grow the private sector [launch] industry, and how to do that is under discussion," said Shinji Ide, director of the National Space Policy Secretariat, on the panel. He endorsed the idea of the Japanese government being an anchor tenant for commercial launches as well as public-private partnerships, drawing parallels to NASA's efforts to develop commercial cargo and crew transportation services.
One way to reach the goal of 30 launches a year is for Japan to host launches of foreign rockets. "We want many of the launch companies to use our facilities," said Yoshinori Odagiri, president and chief executive of Space Cotan, a company developing a commercial spaceport on Hokkaido. "But we will not reach 30 just by Japan alone, so we want to also secure international players as well."
He cited a recent study by NASA's Office of Inspector General that said the Kennedy Space Center and Wallops Flight Facility would soon reach capacity as the number of launches at those sites grows. "In order to make up for that, we want the Hokkaido launch site to be utilized."
He did not mention any specific vehicles, but Firefly Aerospace announced in August 2025 that it signed an agreement with Space Cotan to study the feasibility of using the Hokkaido spaceport for launches of its Alpha rocket. The announcement didn't estimate when those launches might begin.
Wataru Takahama, director of the space industry division at Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, said the government would consider regulatory reforms to enable a higher launch rate, such as streamlining license application processes.
"Last year, we only did three launches, and we need to make this into 30 launches," he said. "We want to see as many launches as possible, so we always want to deregulate."
Vielen Dank, dass Sie den Artikel gelesen haben!
