Space & Aeronautics

Government officials are set to back a recommendation that Japan join an ambitious new space project. They are expected to commit Japan to a US-led effort to put a space station into orbit around the moon.

The Japanese and U.S. space agencies have agreed to step up collaboration on advancing human activities on the moon as a way of realizing the eventual exploration of Mars.

The Hayabusa2 on Thursday released a robotic explorer bound for the surface of an asteroid in the probe’s final task before returning to earth, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.

Japan launched a rocket on Wednesday carrying an unmanned spacecraft bound for the International Space Station, after a fire thwarted its planned launch earlier this month.

A two-day test for a future space elevator linking Earth and a space station ended in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, on Sunday.

The U.S. and Japan will work together to prevent satellite collisions and remove space junk from Earth's increasingly crowded orbit.

In a rented office near Tokyo Tower, engineers toil away in a clean room, developing what look like small remote-controlled buggies. In a couple of years, the contraptions could wind up more than 350,000 km away, on the moon.

Japanese heavy equipment makers operating in the aerospace business are tweaking their strategies to focus more on satellite-based data services.

Fifty years after man first walked on the moon, Japan is exploring the profitable side of space with efforts to build up an ecosystem for space-related startups.

Japan should make use of its space technology in international missions to explore the moon and Mars, Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide said in an interview in New York on Friday.