Space Startups in Japan Take on a Bigger Role

Japanese startup ispace’s lunar lander lifted off from a launchpad in the US on 11 December 2022 and attempted to touch down on the moon in the predawn hours of 26 April 2023. Landing on the moon, an object that exerts a gravitational force of its own, is a feat that only half the six countries that have tried*—the US, Russia, and China—have been able to pull off, and they needed state-backed programs to do it.

ispace’s shot at it was unfortunately unsuccessful, but if it had succeeded it would have been the world’s first moon landing by a private entity. That a startup founded in 2010 could take on such a challenge, financing it solely with funding procured on its own, and come within inches of pulling the feat off, is itself an indicator of the possibilities inherent in expanding the role of startups in Japan’s space programs.

In the US, Elon Musk’s SpaceX broke into the market for launching satellites, previously the exclusive turf of major corporations. Now the leading satellite launch provider worldwide*, it has also built Starlink, a communications network using over 4,000 satellites^†. Given that it was set up about 20 years ago, its scale, and the role it now plays, SpaceX can hardly be characterized as a startup anymore; but we have undoubtably entered an age when young ventures shoulder roles in national space programs, such as the US National Reconnaissance Office using satellite images provided by fledgling firms.

Japan’s space startups have been multiplying rapidly since around 2018, and there are over 80¹ of them as of October 2022. Their ranks are swelling on government grants to cover the business risks related to space and opportunities to carry out trials in space, though one capable of undertaking some aspect of Japan’s activities in space has yet to emerge. Japanese space initiatives—largely new and novel such as clean-up missions to remove space debris from orbit—are growing in number and scale.

The days are over when only a limited number of large conglomerates could manage the entirety of a nation’s space programs. The time has come to think about how to expand the role that startups, too, can play in Japan’s space endeavors.