(Update) Japan to Develop Next-Generation Rocket within 10 Yrs

Tokyo, Sept. 17 (Jiji Press)–Japan intends to develop and test- launch a next-generation rocket that will succeed H-2A rockets within 10 years, the head of a space development agency said Wednesday.

Shuichiro Yamanouchi, president of the National Space Development Agency, told a press conference that the new rocket should be the world’s most reliable, while its production costs should be half the 8.5 billion yen spent on Japan’s current mainstay H-2A rockets.

The planned rocket will be a little larger than H-2A, he said.

Yamanouchi will become the first head of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, to be set up on Oct. 1 through the integration of three government-affiliated space bodies–NASDA, the Institute of Space and Astronomical Science and the National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan.

Yamanouchi also said the new agency will focus on the industrial use of aerospace technology in order to support the development of domestic meteorological, communications and broadcast satellites that are cheap enough to compete with foreign-made satellites.

Japan’s satellite market is currently dominated by foreign makers as a result of a Japan-U.S. agreement of 1990 that obliged Japan to procure satellites internationally.