Japan Eyes Lunar Landing
By Frank Morring, Jr. 
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Houston - Veteran Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata's long-duration stay on the International Space Station (ISS), which began March 17 when he transferred his Soyuz seat liner to the station's Russian lifeboat, kicks off an ambitious human spaceflight effort for Japan that could eventually see Japanese landers on the moon.
The key to Japan's plans for the human portion of its space program centers on the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV), an autonomous cargo carrier scheduled to make its first flight to the ISS in September on an H-IIB rocket.
The 16.5-ton spacecraft was designed to deliver six tons of pressurized and unpressurized cargo to the ISS, primarily for the Kibo laboratory module and station logistics. But Kuniaki Shiraki, executive director of the human spaceflight program at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), said March 17 that JAXA is considering HTV upgrades as part of the agency's 10-year plan now in development.
As a first step, Shiraki said, Japan would add the thermal protection systems needed to give the HTV a re-entry capability, filling in some of the "down-mass" capability that will be lost when the space shuttle fleet retires next year. JAXA engineers also are studying what it would take to human-rate HTV for the return, so it could act as a crew rescue vehicle. Beyond that, JAXA is considering adapting HTV technology to deliver cargo to the moon as one of Japan's contributions to an international exploration effort there. During a press briefing here in connection with the ongoing STS-119 shuttle mission that delivered Wakata to the ISS, Shiraki said that would include a Japanese lunar lander.
The Japanese government is currently developing a Cabinet-level 10-year space plan, which should be ready by the end of the summer, according to Yukihide Hayashi, the JAXA vice president. Originally the plan was to have been finished by the end of April, but Hayashi told reporters at Kennedy Space Center after Wakata launched on the space shuttle Discovery that the "process" of developing the plan is taking longer than anticipated.
In addition to JAXA, other agencies in Japan have a space role, including the Japanese military forces, and those interests must be resolved before the plan is complete. Uncertainty about how Japan will proceed in space is heightened by the likelihood of national elections this year, and the global economic crisis.
Regardless of the ultimate shape of Japanýýýs human spaceflight program, Wakata's arrival at the ISS as the first long-duration Japanese astronaut marks the culmination of JAXA's long participation as a partner to NASA on the orbiting laboratory, and the beginning of new activities.
"His stay on orbit will pave the way for the Japanese human spaceflight program from this first step," Shiraki said.
Artist's concept of H-II Transfer Vehicle: JAXA
