Japan Joins The Space Business

jukal writes "CNN writes: "Today's launch marks a major step towards commercialization of Japan's satellite launch business," said an official of the National Space Development Agency (NASDA). Payload: a data relay satellite and an unmanned space experiment recovery system. Detailed launch report is here."

At what cost?

[Tablizer]

Japan has been working its way slowly into the space business for a long time, including some embarrassing setbacks. I wonder how much of it is subsidized. IOW, it may be for political or nationalistic reasons rather than to make money (any time soon).

USERS experiments

[masterkool]

Here [216.239.39.100] is a HTML document of the USERS project description. It has just about everything about the project. Its pdf [usra.edu] counterpart is also available.

NASDA

[lommer]

did they HAVE to name it NASDA?

man that is going to get confusing...