|
TOKYO - Japan is set to end legal restrictions on the nation’s main
space agency so that it can participate in military space
development, following recommendations from a top government
panel.
The Special Advisory Committee of the
Strategic Headquarters for Space Policy (SHSP) also approved key
changes that will fundamentally alter the management of Japan’s
space program.
A senior government official familiar with
the decision said the recommendations mean the SHSP is now
drafting several pieces of legislation for Japan’s Diet
(Congress) that should be passed as early as April or as late as
July, when the upcoming Diet session ends. The first item is to
amend the law governing the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
The official said the legislation will amend
Article 4 of the law governing JAXA, drafted in 2003, deleting
the stipulation that the agency pursues space development “for
peaceful purposes only,” and as such will bring it in line with
the Basic Space Law of May 2008.
The Basic Law overturned a 1960s-era
resolution that Japan’s space development be for peaceful
purposes only, but had excepted JAXA.
The official said the proposed law will
bring JAXA under Article 2 of the Basic Law that space
development be “in accordance with the pacifism of the
Constitution of Japan,” and Article 14, “The State shall take
the necessary measures to promote space development and use to
endure international peace and security as well as to
contribute to the national security of Japan.” The change in
effect brings JAXA in line with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty,
which allows for the non-aggressive/defensive use of military
space and prohibits the deployment of weapons of mass
destruction, the official said. The new legislation will bring
JAXA in line with the Basic Law and international conventions,
the official said.
Takafumi Matsui, deputy chairman of the
SHSP’s Special Advisory Committee, said the committee also
recommended a major administrative change that requires new
legislation to establish political control of Japan’s space
strategy. This legislation will be submitted along with the
proposed change in JAXA’s law.
Currently, Japan’s space development is
controlled by a hodgepodge of competing ministries, with no
centralized administrative leadership. For example, JAXA’s
policies are controlled by two ministries: the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), and
the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC). Yet
Japan’s reconnaissance satellites are controlled by a different
part of the bureaucracy.
The proposed legislation would put the
Cabinet Office (CO) in control of Japan’s space planning and
budget, Matsui said. The CO would set up a Strategic Space
Office and a Strategic Space Development Commission, probably
of five members, who would have overall control of space policy
and report directly to the prime minister, Matsui said.
Matsui said the recent decision was the
final step in three and a half years of negotiations among
several of Japan’s government ministries about how to implement
the Basic Law. That law had mandated CO control of Japan’s space
development and the establishment of a Space Agency to
streamline decision-making and allow Japan to shift its focus
away from space science and technological development to
commercialization and national security. But the movement had
been stymied by MEXT and MIC, which opposed loss of control of
JAXA.
As a partial solution, the Special Advisory
Committee last September recommended that the CO take control
of the development Japan’s new regional GPS system, called the
Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, parts of which were being
independently financed under budget lines by several competing
ministries.
Under the legislation being drawn up, most
of Japan’s ministries will still have a say in the CO’s
policymaking proposals, but ultimate control will be in the
hands of the new commission,. “a sort of grand compromise,” the
government official said.
Insiders are divided as to how much the
legislation will accelerate Japan’s military space development
amid the pull and push of different priorities and strong
institutional reticence in Japan to militarize.
The Society of Japanese Aerospace
Companies, which represents the country’s space and aerospace
community, is lobbying the government to develop a range of
reconnaissance and early warning satellites for missile
defense. The Ministry of Defense in 2009 drew up a long shopping
list of potential military space needs, including spy, early
warning, communications and signals intelligence satellites,
and space situational awareness and defensive counterspace
technologies.
But facing a flat budget and lack of human
resources, the MoD has put such items on the back burner,
sources said.
Given JAXA’s long institutional commitment
to research and development of only peaceful space
technologies, change could come slowly, said Hiroaki Akiyama,
director of the Institute for Education on Space at Wakayama
University, and a close watcher of the SHSP’s moves.
JAXA itself commands the largest chunk of
Japan’s space spending; its fiscal 2012 budget included 173
billion yen ($2.3 billion) out of the 297 billion yen Japan will
spend on space this year. And JAXA has been responsible for
developing a wide range of dual-use technologies.
By removing its peaceful purposes-only
mandate, Matsui said, the change in JAXA’s law will make it
easier for Japan to develop military space programs, as it
could open up the technical knowledge and human resources
available in the agency.
|
