Japan will start developing a new heavy launch vehicle in 2014.

The Japanese government has decided in 2014 to begin developing a new launch vehicle (PH) H-3 to replace the H-2A, which Tokyo is currently using to launch spacecraft into near-earth orbit. About it reports ARMS-TASS with reference to the representatives of the Japanese authorities.

Japan's state budget for 2014 FG 7 billion yen (67,3 million dollars) was allocated for the development of the rocket. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Limited will lead the development of the new LV. The Japanese authorities expect that its new version in terms of reliability will not yield to its predecessor. Also, the rocket designers hope that it will reduce the costs of rocket launches by half, thereby increasing Tokyo’s competitiveness in the international market for commercial satellite launches. Currently, one launch of H-2A costs Japan in 10 billion yen (96 million dollars). It is assumed that the launch of a new generation of missiles will cost 5 - 6,5 billion yen (48-62 million dollars).

The total cost of developing H-3 is estimated at 190 billion yen (1,83 billion dollars). As expected, the first test of the new rocket will take place in 2020.

Since 2001, the city of Tokyo has already launched 22 H-2A, intended for launching into the Earth orbit spacecraft with a mass up to 8 t. Only one of the launches failed. Last year, for the first time, the Japanese RN launched a foreign spacecraft into orbit - the South Korean satellite Ariran-3. This meant the actual accession of Japan to the group of countries implementing commercial space launches. Currently, about 80% of such launches are carried out by Russia and the EU.

Comments

[Airman]

Japan feels a threat from China, and this missile will not only be commercial, to launch satellites.

[Nikolay D.]

Quote: Povshnik

Japan feels threat from China

Not there they are waiting for trouble, not there, the main trouble is already with them. Only for some reason they do not pay such "technological" attention to it, as an imaginary threat from China.

[itr]

Pvoshnik taught geography ????
look where China and where Japan stone can be thrown))))

[Airman]

Quote: itr

Pvoshnik taught geography ????
look where China and where Japan stone can be thrown))))

Did you study geography? China is BIG.

[itr]

Pvoshnik taught geography ????
look where China and where Japan stone can be thrown))))

[APASUS]

Quote: Povshnik

Japan feels a threat from China, and this missile will not only be commercial, to launch satellites.

After the war, Japan had a number of restrictions in the military sphere and is now trying to catch up with what was lost. But without space exploration it will be difficult to raise the defense by one more level!

[Nikolay D.]

Poor people, Fukushima is threatening to escalate into a global problem (at the moment, Chernobyl is a paradise, clean reserve compared to the emissions of Fukushima), and instead of solving them, they are preparing to deliver this problem on launch vehicles.

[Canep]

Quote: Nikolai D.

They are preparing to deliver this problem on launch vehicles.

You need to look further, they will dump the moon on this rocket.

[Nikolay D.]

Quote: Canep

on this rocket they’ll dump the moon.

Late, Uncle Liao is waiting for them there.

[series]

what about "uncle Liao" Already there is a lunar rocket with a module returned for humans?

[ziqzaq]

Quote: S-200

and that "Uncle Liao" already has a lunar rocket with a module returned for people?

And why the Chinese returned module? Cheaper than the following to send ....
Joke....

[itr]

Not Uncle Liao, but Jade Liao

[itr]

Not Uncle Liao, but Jade Liao

[mountain]

They need new territories, but what they aimed at, only the Japs know. Not a visit to them with an atom, neither with peace nor with the military. Some kind of misfortune.

[Nikolay D.]

Quote: mountain

but what they aimed at, only the Japs know

Do you think they were aiming at other territories? But then the whole of Japan will be Fukushima, and without the Japanese. There is something else, all more or less serious players in the world began to build up their military power, but what shouldn't the Yapas? No, but the Americans gave them the go-ahead (after all, a remote division in the eastern direction), and here the Yapas saw a plus, on the one hand - a launch vehicle for American charges, on the other hand, the delivery of "garbage" to near-earth orbit. Well, Fukushima itself will resolve itself. , so in a thousand hundred years.

[RUSS]

Or maybe this "dual" missile .... ????

[Ezhaak]

Quote: RUSS

Or maybe this "dual" missile ....?

Most likely the army option will be slightly different. It’s just unrealistic to push H2A2024 into the mine. Yes, and H2A204, too. BUT technology will be used for the army. I see no reason to have such missiles in service with the army without nuclear weapons, from which Japan has publicly refused. Send ordinary charges weighing a dozen tons?

[Very old]

Quote: RUSS

Or maybe this "dual" missile .... ????

One purpose: between Scylla and Charybdis
China side by side and with USA tied

[Saburo]

If we talk about dual-use missiles, then it's more about the Epsilon missile. At the end of 2012, there was information that an "unknown party" had hacked into JAXA computers and investigated the missile launch data for a possible conversion into ICBMs.

And nuclear weapons Japan, if desired, can develop in the shortest possible time, their level of technological development allows them to do so.

And they need the H-III for completely peaceful purposes, for example, for commercial launches or for their Kounotori space trucks.

[kelevra]

Of course, it is unlikely that someone will attack Japan! It can threaten someone, for example, China, Singapore, Taiwan, only economically, due to its goods. But, at the economic level, such threats are solved in other ways, therefore, such armaments will cost them a lot to maintain! They will not be turned against Russia either, their level and, moreover, it’s pointless to equal military strengths! Maybe they decided to drive out US bases from their territory in the future, if the Americans want to return the territory of Japan to themselves, in the fleet! Who knows what the ambitions of the land of the rising sun will lead to!