Japan has a surprisingly ambitious space exploration program, much of which seems to go completely unnoticed by the west. At about 2e9 $/year (about 1/10 of the founding NASA gets) they've successfully launched:
* a solar sail (navigatable by electrically changing reflectivity of parts of the sail)
* two asteroid sample return missions (one succeeded, one in progress)
* tow missions utilizing ion engines (Hayabusa I and II, that's on par with NASA)
* missions to mars and venus (Nozomi, the mars mission failed, the venus mission Akatsuki is delayed, see the article)
* Kounotori resupply vehicle to the ISS with 6 metric tonnes payload.
* I gues a lot more that I'm not aware of.
They have their own rocket launch facility on japan soil (Tanegashima Space Center) launching domestically developed rockets with > 16 metric tonnes payload to LEO. I wonder how long it will take them to develop a manned space program (or maybe they're smart enough to not waste any money on that).
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 13.5 ms ] thread* a solar sail (navigatable by electrically changing reflectivity of parts of the sail)
* two asteroid sample return missions (one succeeded, one in progress)
* tow missions utilizing ion engines (Hayabusa I and II, that's on par with NASA)
* missions to mars and venus (Nozomi, the mars mission failed, the venus mission Akatsuki is delayed, see the article)
* Kounotori resupply vehicle to the ISS with 6 metric tonnes payload.
* I gues a lot more that I'm not aware of.
They have their own rocket launch facility on japan soil (Tanegashima Space Center) launching domestically developed rockets with > 16 metric tonnes payload to LEO. I wonder how long it will take them to develop a manned space program (or maybe they're smart enough to not waste any money on that).