Organisational Structure

The United States Moon craft Apollo 11 reached the Moon in 1969. In the same year, the National Space Development Agency (NASDA) was started in Japan and work on rockets begun in earnest. But, the work towards entering into space arena could be said to have started much earlier during 1950s.

The credit for making Japan ready to entire the space age goes to Professor Hideo Itokawa from Tokyo University. He was instrumental in shaping Japanese governments views in this field. In 1960, he along with his colleague outlined that how a small satellite could be launched into the space. The scientific community under his leadership submitted a report in 1962 titled ‘Tentative plan for a satellite launcher’. The scientific community considered various issues like: Is satellite project feasible? Is there a need for cooperation with the USA? Is it worth making investments despite late start [4, pp. 4-11]? Subsequently, by 1965 a conscious decision was taken in 1965 that Japan should go ahead for a scientific satellite

programme. In the year 1970, Japan joined spacefaring nations by successfully launching ‘Ohsumi’, the first indigenous satellite developed by them.

During 1955 at the University of Tokyo, the Institute of Industrial Science began work with sounding rockets. In the same university in 1964, Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS-the word Aeronautical was replaced by Astronautical in 1981), a lead agency overlooking Japan’s space science programmes was established. Subsequently, in 1969, the formation of National Space Development Agency (NASDA) helped Japan to develop programmes in the areas of remote sensing, communication and meteorology. The same agency was responsible for launching and tracking of satellites [5]. Japan had to face the agony of four successive launch failures (1966-1969), and its first successful satellite launch took place only in the fifth attempt. Although NASDA dwelled into various application programmes, one of their main tasks was the development of launch vehicles.

Apart from these agencies, other organisations like National Aerospace Labo­ratory of Japan (NAL-established in 1955) were involved in research on aircraft, rockets and other aeronautical transportation systems, as well as peripheral tech – nology.[111] Almost for three decades, many of the organisations responsible for the developments in space arena were reporting to different ministries in the Japanese government. Naturally, for overall growth of the programme, such diverse reporting channels and different budgeting allocations were hazardous. The period 1996-2003 witnessed a major setback to Japan’s space programme because of series of failures. Unfortunately, these failures never remained restricted to any one sector, and Japan faced losses both with its launchers as well as satellite systems. This made Japanese government to bring in significant reforms in its space architecture.

On the other hand, Japan could be said to be a country with unique distinction of having developed two parallel space programmes with two main organisations ISAS and NASDA having their own fleet of rockets, launch sites, mission control and tracking systems. The organisations had some amount of internal revelries too [4, p. 19]. The Japanese model demonstrates that the multiplicity of assets and formation of different organisations for similar purpose have limited utility and limited life span.

Since October 2003, a single body called Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is responsible for all aerospace activities in the Japan. JAXA is an indepen­dent administrative institution which functions as a principal entity responsible for research and development of Japan in aerospace areas. For this purpose NASDA, ISAS and NAL have been merged into one entity to establish JAXA. Now this organisation boasts a unique status in the country.3

JAXA is put under the administrative control of MEXT: Ministry of Edu­cation, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Inter-ministerial decision body for space, Space Activities Committee (SAC), is responsible for supervising the

space activities within MEXT and JAXA. The national strategy issues for all areas of science and technology including space is being overseen by the Council of Science and Technology Policy (CSTP) which is chaired by the prime minister [6]. Interestingly, Japan has also appointed its first ever minister of space development.[112] This appointment needs to be viewed at the backdrop of Japan scrapping its earlier policy of ban on the use of space programmes for defence.