Recently in JAXA Category

The Japanese climate change monitoring satellite GCOM-W1 (Shizuku) was launched successfully at 1639 GMT on 17th May 2012 by a Japanese H-2A202 launch vehicle.  The lift off took place at Japan's main launch site at Tanegashima. Also aboard was the South Korean Earth observation satellite Kompsat 3 and two small satellites: the Houryuu 2 (aka Houryuu 2) amateur radio satellite and the experimental satellite SDS 4.

Having previously collaborated on the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) instrument for JAXA's  Hinode (Solar B) mission, and with the UK having provided disaster monitoring imaging via the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) system after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, Japan and the United Kingdom have announced that they are going to collaborate further on space research.  

During April, the UK Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts signed an agreement with the Japanese Economy Minister Motohisa Furukawa for greater collaboration on space research and technology,  This is likely to include working on on earth observation technology, such as the NovaSAR  space radar programme or the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) run by Surrey Satellite Technology Limited

As the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa probe, which may have collected a soil sample from an asteroid, limps into Earth orbit due to thruster problems, a new debate seems to have started about the country's space programme

According to this article from the English language Daily Yomiuri newspaper the Japanese space programme has its own problems with a debate brewing about whether manned spaceflight can continue

Japan, despite being a wealthy nation, has always had goals far beyond the resources its prepared to put into them and last year the country's government imposed a 10% cut on the agency's budget

Once touted as a partner in the doomed ESA/Russian Federal Space Agency plans for Kliper/Clipper JAXA must now be wondering how it sustains its involvement in the International Space Station to 2020 and beyond 

 

Russia Today is reporting that photos of the Moon taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter clearly show Lunokhod-2 the rover that landed on the celestial body in 1973 as part of the Soviet space programme. Good to know the Soviet space programme wasn't a hoax either then

Meanwhile the Russian Federal Space Agency (aka Roscosmos) is reporting on its website confirmation from prime minister Vladimir Putin of the Russian-Indian joint mission, that we reported back in July 2008, although it seems the mission will not now go to the International Space Station

Roscosmos is also reporting that the ISS partners are ready to co-operate with third parties and Cina is cited. India is also an obvious space faring nation that could be involved which makes the non-ISS Soyuz flight a bit of a mystery

In the run up to the launch of Soyuz TMA-18 Roscosmos talks about the 12 emergency landing sites outside Russia and Kazakhstan that there are, who knew there were so many? and for media there si an opportuntiy to drink tea at a tea party with cosmonauts and astronauts about to go to the ISS

While this report about Roscosmos Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency discussions about what must be the Bepi Colombo Mercury mission is somewhat hard to read but seems to suggest the Russians might get onboard this project, which has had some budgetary trouble in the past due to technical troubles

The Samaar Space Center Soyuz 2-1b rocket is about to get some new technology care of Khrunichev Space Center subsidiary Voronezh Mechanical Factory which Roscosmos says is to invent a new steering engine, the RD-0110R, the 2-1b flight control system

Finally Roscosmos had a board meeting recently

Care of Japan's Fuji tv and space exploration blog Space Gizmo here is a video of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut and International Space Station crew member Soichi Noguchi tackling sushi in microgravity

The joint statement by the International Space Station partners can be found here welcoming president Barack Obama's comitment to extending ISS use and the boost for station related space operations in the fiscal year 2011 budget request. The statement says:

The MCB also noted that the U.S. Administration's 2011 NASA budget submission continues the ISS to at least 2020 and expands efforts to utilize this unique platform for scientific, technological, and educational purposes by increasing the ISS budget by $2B over four years.

 

Its time again for a whirlwind roundup of various news items from around the internet beginning with Space News' Galileo satellite navigation system scoop

Hyperbola hears that the actual announcement on who won what will be made on or around 23 December, next week basically. While Space News talks of Germany's OHB Systems winning eight of the 22 spacecraft to be ordered Hyperbola can understand why Astrium, with all the built in costs such a large company has to address, might not be too happy at any outcome starting with the reduction in spacecraft from 28 to 22

Talking of Europeans the head of the European Space Agency's Earth Observation programmes visit to China is a feature on the China National Space Administration (CNSA) website which is rather scant on detail on what China, ESA coperation in this area actually means. On the rarely updated CNSA website there is also news of a signing of a two-year China, Russia space co-operation deal, again with little detail on what that means - docking and rendezvous help perhaps?

And talking of Russians, that country's spacecraft company Energia is preparing for the 20 December launch of Soyuz TMA-17, go here for more photos of the astronaut, cosmonaut training.  Meanwhile there is a documentary movie apparently of Anousheh Ansari's Soyuz trip to the International Space Station, more details can be found here at Romanian space advocacy group ARCA's website along with info on a school's space related painting workshop

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency gives an update on its solar sail spacecraft Ikaros, which it compares with the US Planetary Society's Lightsail-1, while Aabar Investment is taking a long term view of its interest in space tourism

Point to point is not going to be with us for a good twenty years simply because of the time it will take, assuming space tourism is successful, to draw in the hundreds of millions of dollars of private investment needed to solve the technology issues of propulsion and thermal protection - not to mention necessary international regulatory issues

But what a point to point suborbital vehicle is unlikely to use is an inflatable heat shield, which NASA is intending to fly again and has just released the draft statement of work for. Another NASA procurement is to examine the feasibility of what could be one element of the Augustine report's flexible path - lagrange point space telescope servicing by astronauts

Watch this video from the International Astronautical Congress in Daejeon, Korea where the future of the International Space Station was discussed by the ISS partners 

Go here for more IAC2009 videos

Watch this video from the Internatonal Astronautical Congress in Daejeon, Korea first plenary session where heads of the world's major space agencies discuss the future

Go here for more IAC2009 videos

credit JAXA / caption: Has Fig.6-1 spilled the beans?

Has the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency given the game away with this diagram from an International Astronautical Congress 2009 JAXA International Space Station plans presentation?

Is that a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy with Orion I see before me and what's with the human lander demonstration in 2025?

Is this the new plan, broadly speaking? Has the grapevine network between the different space agencies led the Japanese to broadly sketch out how they expect human Moon exploration to evolve after friendly email banter with their NASA counterparts?

It's certainly intriguing but then it could just be JAXA's plan and that Orion like spacecraft could be a JAXA vision vehicle for a 2020-era Japanese manned transportation system. Then again the human lander demo reference could explain the mysterious March International Space Exploration Coordination Group statement that indicated Altair may not be the only crewed lander - I never did get any sense out of the agencies about who this statement referred too. Stay tuned for more info about the international lunar exploration plans this week