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Episode 82: Jaxa and International Collaboration with Professor Fujimoto Masaki

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Prof. Fujimoto Masaki
Prof. Fujimoto Masaki. Credit author

 The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) was founded in 2003 through the merger of three existing organisations and has an annual budget of around 2 billion USD. It has a remit for research and development of technology, space exploration and supporting human spaceflight aboard the ISS through collaboration with the European Space Agency. This episode is available in audio and video below.

In 2003, JAXA launched Hayabusa-1 to explore the asteroid Itokawa. It arrived at Itokawa in 2005 and returned to the Earth with a tiny sample in 2010.  In 2014, JAXA launched Hayabusa-2 to explore asteroid Ryugu.  Hayabusa2 arrived at Ryugu on 27 June 2018 and will remain in Ryugu orbit until 2019. It will collect three discrete samples (between 0.1g and 1g in each case), store them in separate sealed containers on board for return to Earth in December 2020, in the Woomera test range in Australia.

All four rovers. Credit ESA
Hayabusu 2 and Ryugu. Credit ESA
silhouette of Hayabusa2 on Ryugu. Credit JAXA

Hyabusa2 has four rovers.

  • MINERVA-II-1 contains two rovers, Rover-1A and Rover-1B, which were deployed on 21 September 2018.
  • Mascot – a rover developed by the German and French space agencies. Deployed on 3rd October 2018.
  • The MINERVA-II-2 contains ROVER-2, a payload developed by several universities in Japan and planned for deployment in July 2019.

JAXA is also considering

  1. 1 The launch of the world’s smallest lunar lander is intended to be launched on NASA’s Space Launch System in the 2020s.
  2. Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon (SLIM) will demonstrate precision landing technology. 
  3. Selene-R – a tentative joint JAXA/ISRO Moon mission to soft-land a rover on the Moon. Jaxa would supply the rover, and ISRO would supply the lander.
  4. MMX – Martian Moons Exploration. A martian sample return mission. Only possible with international collaboration (US, France, Germany). To be launched around 2024. Following a period of 3 years at Mars, it will return to Earth with a sample from Phobos in 2029. 
Prof. Fujimoto Masaki. Credit Author

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Episode 80 – S Somnath Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre

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S Somnath. Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. Credit. Author

S. Somnath joined the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala in 1985 and today he is its director. With more than three decades at ISRO, he has held several key posts, including director of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre. This episode is available in audio and video below.

This interview was recorded on 5th October 2018 in Bremen, Germany, during the IAC2018, so it is a little noisy in parts.

ISRO delegation at IAC2018. Credit IAC2018
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre Credit ISRO
ISRO Stand at IAC 2018. Credit Author

Some highlights include

  • Satish Dhawan – Brought a new vision and restructured ISRO at the organisational level. He consolidated and integrated specialist centres throughout India into the national organisational structure that exists today.
  • Only solid propellants are manufactured on site at Sriharikota. Liquid and cryogenic propellants are transported over a day and a half from ISRO’s Liquid Propulsion Centre to Sriharikota. Currently, only roads are used, but sea transport may be an option in the future.
  • The heavy-lift GSLV Mk3 second development flight is scheduled to launch before the end of 2018.  A target of three successful development flights is required before GSLV Mk3 is designated as operational.
  • Currently, the Sriharikota launch capacity of 12 to 18 launches per year is determined by the industry’s capacity to manufacture launch vehicles. The private sector has all the technological competencies but lacks the capacity to deploy them. 
  • An additional launch site would not be of value at this time. Once private sector capacity increases within the next 2 to 3 years, additional launch sites would be useful.
  • VSSC played a key role in developing the technologies required for the Human Space Flight programme. The  Pad Abort Test was successful. The parachute detached at the planned time and not prematurely, as it looks in the video.
S Somnath. Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre

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Episode 79: satsearch.co – A single digital marketplace for the global space supply chain?

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Satsearch co-founders  – Kartik Kumar, Alberto Vaccarella and Narayan Prasad

A space startup based in the Netherlands – www.satsearch.co is attempting to establish a single digital global marketplace for space components, products and services.  Ultimately, Satsearch’s goal is to reduce cost and time by helping customers and suppliers of space components, products and services find each other online.  This episode is available in audio and video below.

The Satsearch website/portal is hosted in a cloud environment (Amazon Web Services) and is only available in English, with other languages in the pipeline. Currently, the service is free for both suppliers and customers. How it will make money in the future is not yet clear, but the current focus is on growth. The founders hope to develop Satsearch into a sort of “yellow pages” for space products and services but with a richer vendor-neutral metadata interface supported by modern AI tools and applications.

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Episode 76: Space law

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Bayar Goswami

One of the earliest characteristics of human civilisation (large populations living together in organised cities) was the creation of rules or laws that everyone who lived there agreed to abide by.

The 50th anniversary of first humans to visit the Moon is celebrated later this year. In 1968 it was pretty much just two countries and a few space missions per year. Today, over 70 countries have something in the way of a space programme and along with a blossoming private space sector, space is likely to become very busy in the next decade or so. This surge of space activity will determine how the laws in space will apply and begin to set the scene for human civilisation beyond Earth.   On earth, most nations follow international laws most of the time.

International rules for operating in space were defined by the UN in five treaties established between 1967 – 1984.

  • 1967 – The Outer Space Treaty: Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.
  • 1968 – Rescue Agreement. Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space.
  • 1972 – The Liability agreement. Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects.
  • 1976 – The Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space.
  • 1984 – The Moon Treaty. Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies.

How will these laws fair in space? For example, will all governments

  • “authorise and supervise” their  “non-governmental entities” in space?
  • comply with international liabilities for physical damages caused by their space objects?
  • agree on who can build what and where on the Moon?
  • establish mining and ownership rights to materials on the Moon and other celestial bodies?
  • maintain the principles of human rights in space.

These are some of the questions I discuss with  Bayar Goswami, a Doctoral student at the Institute of Air and Space Law, McGill University (IASL) in Canada. A TedX speaker, Bayar has an interest in space as well as law and I started by asking him what came first.

The distinction between terms, such as signed, ratified and accessioned, is described here. A status of which nations have signed which treaty is maintained by the UN here. A summary of the five treaties is available here.

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