Aircraft development in Japan was banned for seven years after World War II, driving aerospace engineers around the country out of work and seriously hurting the country’s technical abilities. After the Treaty of San Francisco, aircraft development was able to resume, and Japan began experimenting with small rockets primarily for aircraft use - starting with the successful launch of a rocket the size of a large pencil in 1955.
Led by the newly-formed University of Tokyo Aerospace division, Japan became the fourth country (after the USSR, USA, and France) to successfully launch its own artificial satellite into orbit. The launch of Ōsumi in 1970 required technical collaboration with the US space program on high-efficiency batteries, setting precedent for US-Japanese technical collaboration extending beyond civilian and military applications and into space.
Since the end of the Cold War Space Race, space exploration has focused heavily on the development of commercial satellites and military reconnaissance satellites in low earth orbit, as well as unmanned study of the lunar and Martian surfaces and telescope-based observations. The last manned lunar mission was the US’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972, and with President Trump’s interest in positioning the United States as a technologically superior power amid rising concerns of waning US hegemony, the United States has renewed its efforts to return human astronauts to the lunar surface.
NASA’s current Artemis moon program aims to put a space station, known as the Gateway, in lunar orbit to serve as a waypoint, staging area, and safe haven for astronauts conducting missions on the surface of the moon. NASA aims to have the core power and propulsion module and a habitation module in lunar orbit by the year 2024, with an ambitious goal of returning humans to the moon in the same year.
Japan’s Committee on National Space Policy announced that Japan would participate in this international collaboration up until at least 2024. JAXA is expected to provide a life-support system, air-conditioning equipment, and batteries for the Gateway. The status of Japan’s participation from 2025 onwards remains unannounced due to potential budgetary uncertainties.
Japan is the second international partner to commit to participating in the program, after Canada announced its support in February of this year. In addition to its technical and logistical support, Japan is also exploring further involvement in Artemis’s lunar surface exploration, with the eventual hope of landing a Japanese astronaut on the moon for the first time.
- Arjun Kumar
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