ESG in Space | Bonus Episode 2 | Dr. Masami Onoda, JAXA

Hello and welcome to a another exciting episode on how do we advance the space economy. My name is Nishan Degrain. I'm one of your hosts today. >> And I'm Mickey Sod. I'm the other host >> and we are so excited to have Masami Onard Onor Onoda here to join us for this podcast and we'll be introducing Masami in just a moment. But first some context why we are so excited to have Masami. It's not just her individual perspectives but also the role that Jaxa and Japan has played in the space economy. Japan has been one of the pioneers in the space space economy. Back in the 1950s and 1960s in the early days of the space race, whereas the US and the Soviet Union were racing for rockets and landing on the moon and satellites, Japan developed its own rocket program. And what was interesting there was that a lot of the the Japanese approach stem from academia rather than the military side. And that has in many ways guided a lot of the Japanese space program. And Japan has constantly and continued to play an innovative role with recent missions such as the slim moon sniper which landed within a 100 meters of its target on the moon which is incredibly pioneering and the Hayabusa mission to take a sample from an asteroid and return it back to Earth. That has really advanced science. There's an incredible amount of fresh and innovative missions that JAXA has undertaken. And what's also interesting about Jackson Japan is that unlike a lot of other space industries, they've taken a all of industry, all of government approach. They have these public private partnerships called JSparks, so I'm sure Masami will talk about which are these partnership into academia and industry and the launch of this new $6 billion space strategy fund, which we're really excited to discuss and see how that will be deployed and how that could stimulate the the space economy. So, we're thrilled to have Masami join us and maybe Mickey can give a little bit of an introduction to Masami and her incredible background. >> Yes. Yes. So, I'm so happy to welcome Dr. Onoda to our podcast. And so I think Masami and I met when she was at the DC office and then she was the director of Washington DC office for six years starting at 2018 and she played a a very important role to represent Japanese government and JAXA but being a liazison role and had maintained relationship with NASA and other governmental agencies. She also played a key role in Japan joining Ultimus Accord and many other accomplishments. last year July she then got appointed to a the headquarter in Tokyo as a director of Jaxa's international relationship and research department and I'm so thrilled for her like very significant role in not only for Japanese government and JAXA but as a leader in international space industry as well. With that again, thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you Mikisan and thank you Nishan for having me here. My name is Masami Onoda and thank you for the kind introduction to both of you. It's just a pleasure to be here since I was in Washington DC. Now I have so to say gone global. Now I have to deal with Asia, not just the US, not just the Americas, Asia, Africa, Latin America, of course, Middle East, uh Europe. So it's it's a very exciting job and a very dynamic world and times. So very much looking forward to this podcast today. Thank you. >> And that brings me to our first question. As you you've mentioned, your role now is a a global role. Obviously many nations and in the last 25 years or so Jaxa and Japan has gone from when there was only a handful of nation states running space programs to now over 80 nations with active space programs. How does Japan or JAXA differentiate or distinguish its position in this more crowded world where Japan is now one of a significant nation state but obviously not with the same budget as a a NASA or the Chinese space agency. So how how does Japan see itself within these kind of proliferation more space nations? >> Yes, we do have our national flagship launcher, the newest one called H3. So we just had the last final launch, 50th launch of H2A carrying a greenhouse gas observing satellite just a month or so ago. Now we have switched to our new H3. Therefore we have our own capability to launch also build satellites. That was a long effort for the first several decades for Japan when we tried to foster our space capabilities and of course we learned a lot from our international partners the so-called space fairing countries at that time and now as you say there's just an exponential um growth of of numbers of actors numbers of countries that wish to join and I think Japan has a very unique role where we have started out from civil space development R&D and there's a very strong component of in civil component in our space industry as time passed 2008 was when we had established our basic space law so that allowed a whole of a government approach where decision- making for space policy was elevated from uh the science and technology um agency to the cabinet level. So the space policy headquarters is led by the prime minister Ishiba at the moment and the cabinet members. So it's that that level of policy priority that Japan space policy is led. I think that's one more unique point where that allows JAXA also to be the single core space agency of Japan and so everything from security industry and civil is now concentrated for the technology to JAXA where we undertake a very broad wide range of space programs also space policy and governance structure is very unique as well that we have a R&D component, a civil component and the security component, industry support component that's all concentrated and focused in one core space agency. So it allows us to have a very agile space program and to carry out the space policy very closely with the highest level of the government. So all all in all we are very proud to be just recently the slim lander landing on the moon that was the that made Japan the fifth country in the world to land on the surface of the moon. I think that also symbolizes where Japan is in the space technology level and and we are very proud to be working with international partners going forward. >> Super. I always think about this duality right where like one thing is what is Japan's role in space which we just talked about but also how does Japan see space industry as a driving force in Japanese economy too. And so I think in a way the symbolic gesture may not be the right word like but a a space strategy fund which is very sizable and a bold move for Japan as a nation right is sort of like a a symbol of like how Japan sees space industry like its role as well its effect on our economy too. So for our audience, if you can explain a little bit more about the space strategic fund and then what is what are you excited about the strategic fund? If you can tell us a little bit about that that would be wonderful. >> Of course, Mickey. So the space strategy fund is uh in Japanese yen, one trillion yen over 10 years. That's about 6 billion US over 10 years. It has been allocated all uh already two billion in 24, two billion for 25 and next year hopefully also a sizable amount out of that six billion over 10 years but we're still in the third year. So I think receiving already maybe more than half of it in the first three years is is a very good sign. So that that shows a strong support by the government. So several ministries have put their money into this pot of the space strategy fund for JAXA. So the money is managed by JAXA. It comes to JAXA first. We put out a call then select the the awardees and then we have contracts and then we evaluate and the contracts can go on for several multiple years. Um so we are now in the second round for this. The first round we had 22 themes uh ranging from space transportation, satellite, space exploration and also crosscutting technologies and then we have different themes for this fiscal year too and now that summer has ended I think the calls have gone out and we're in the selection process and hopefully another round next year and also we are discussing how to encourage international partnership through this so that each country can support their own industry But maybe the space agencies can cooperate in information sharing about their initiatives and industry and also uh facilitate cooperation partnership between the industry that they respectively support. So to have kind of a space agency space agency government to government and businessto business all type of effective synergy of of industry support. So that's what we're looking at right now. In uh Japan right now we have about 100 space startups and also maybe about 180 to 200 space companies all in all including non- startups and of course as you know we are said to have more than 600 billion space economy worldwide. Japan goal currently it's estimated to be 27 billion US dollars or so. We want to double this in the next five years or so. So that's the goal of the government. And so to support this doubling of the Japanese space economy, the space strategy fund is meant to play a large role. And again, as I said, this very strong support for industry that's shown in this quite substantial amount of budget that's invested into the space industry through Ojaxa. We are so thrilled to be part of it. Of course, money has to be used wisely. I used to be asked what's the best way to support funding to industry used to say right amount at the right time. That's very crucial. And too much at the wrong moment is the worst thing you could do. Too much or too less of course. And I think to use this money wisely is is our challenge. And we are very humbled I guess to be given this role to manage the space strategy fund and we'll see maybe in a few years how this has turned out but hopefully we can contribute to supporting the industry. We have hired a lot of people also from the finance sector to support us managing the funds and we're doing our best to be a good partner for the industry. That's fascinating because I mean you know not just the size which of you know is in itself incredible and very innovative that it's a public private partnership not just a handout by government or like another funding of missions. I think the way that it's also being deployed is interesting and what struck me when we were preparing for this podcast is how many non-space companies were also engaged as well. I think that's something that makes Japan particularly unique. We hear a lot about how do you engage the space companies but Japan has managed in a way to engage a lot of industries to find a use of space you know almost kind of the use of good for space and so maybe you could explain a little bit more how Japan succeeded in reaching out successfully to non-space companies to be part of this kind of broader mission >> of course so space strategy fund started just last year but we have been doing industry relations industry engagement for the last 20 years or so. This kind of effort is not done overnight. It's been a very long effort that's kind of blossoming right now, but been a long time working on industry promotion. That's what we called first. Public private promotion also was the way we called it in the beginning since JAXA had concentrated on science and technology. 20 years ago, I tried to use the word industry in a document and I was banned from doing that. They said, "Oh, no, no, no. This is me. It's not, you know, our ministry next." Now, it's just ridiculous to say that. Uh, you cannot talk about space without industry. But 20 years ago, who would know? And then we tried to work with the many non-space companies because there were not many space companies back then. There was only the Mitsubishi and NEC and IHI and all of that but not not the Astros scale not the ISP space not the Infosella or Interstellar of all of these. Forgive me if I forget to I I won't be able to mention all the 100 startups but it doesn't mean that I'm partial to any of them. The way how do you foster space industry is uh you have to work with non-space companies. Um early examples were construction companies of course entertainment companies like uh Sony wants to work with us. We worked with Takarati a toy company for actually one of the rovers that was deployed from Slim. That was the one that Soraku was a kind of transformer type of a small this small um very small robot that took a selfie of Slim on the surface of the moon which um allowed us to uh find out that it was it had landed actually upside down but that's another story. So we worked with all of these different companies and it's been a long effort. We had a we now have a group uh uh called the space de business development uh department in JAXA that has been carrying out a program called J-Spark to work with many different companies that was even before the space strategy fund. It's very exciting also to be able to work with a range of these non-space companies. We also have the space innovation hub that does a similar thing. So there it's not just a strategy fund. Of course we do have programs uh of JAXA itself >> and Mami. I think what's also interesting is that the space economy has become increasingly crowded. We see a lot more nation states enter the space with a range of different value systems as well as the private sector some of which are more experimental. What are some of the values that Japan wants to bring into the space economy? Especially ensuring the sustainability and inclusiveness of the space economy for future based nations who may want to enter into this arena. >> The Japanese government places very high priority on sustainability. A safe and sustainable space environment is vital to our continuing space programs and development of the economy that we talked about and this cannot be done without demonstrating uh technology in as a space agency. We really feel the responsibility to be able to demonstrate the technology that we can tackle this problem and so that we are partnering with the industry uh to demonstrate. So we call it the commercial removal of debris demonstration CRD2 program. The first phase just finished. We did an approached a second stage of our H2A rocket to monitor it and then in the space 2 we will actually try to remove it. So a second stage of a rocket a heavy rocket is a big chunk of at the moment space debris. If if it collides with another space debris or space object it will be shattered into many pieces of catastrophic really space debris event will happen. if that happens. So we really want to tackle this by one way effective way of doing that we see is to remove a large space debris if not possible to remove all of them at once. So that's what we're trying to do demonstrate this technology in partnership with industry and it's you know kind of gets all three goals in one stone kind of throw and industry technology demonstration and sustainability. We really try to lead this area and please watch our COD2 program how our active space debris removal technology demonstration will unfold in the future coming years. >> But does it and it also shows kind of a unique approach to Japanese leadership. I think for other organizations it would be more about the rule setting but it seems as if this is a partnership this experimentation to actually go out and demonstrate. And I think that's also kind of a novel aspect of Japanese leadership on a particular kind of space problem which I think is fascinating to solve. I'm tapping into Japanese strengths and the style of leadership but like a strength as in precision robotics and all that too and also uh I I think there are room for different style of leadership but like lead by example and also by demonstrating that shows that care this precious environment is for everybody to use and I think that's very admirable in my opinion. Yes, absolutely. Because this technology actually is a heritage from our rendevous technology which is with the ISS HTV cargo transportation vehicle approaching the ISS this and being captured by the robotic arm. This is the same rendevous and approach heritage technology that we're using for this capturing in space debris active debris removal. We do try to use our heritage technology for solving the current challenges and also for to the point Nishan pointed out rules and technology demonstration hand in hand is very important actually to make this happen we could not give a license to a commercial partner to carry out rendevous and proximity operations without a rule for that. So we did the cabinet office set up rules and also guidelines to make the this kind of technology demonstration in orbit possible. So regulation really has gone hand inhanded with the industry and the technology the innovation they wanted to carry out. So I think this also is a very good case of working with industry to solve sustainability challenges. >> Fascinating. And I think the focus on private public partnership as well as whole of government or whole of economy approach is very unique and and as you mentioned like rover right or nonspace company or I would like to say adjacent companies are involved in the space program like say for example I could see how automotives right Toyota or Honda or mobility companies are al and robotics is what you know Japan's known for. So Jaxa and Japanese government and tapping into the Japanese strength to play a role in this space economy too and I think that's very interesting that the JUX playing a catalytic role in involving um private sector as well. >> Thank you. Yes, absolutely. So you touched upon a very important point. We had our prime minister Kishida visit the US in 2024 to witness the signing of an agreement with NASA and the Japanese government to uh cooperate on the development of the pressurized rover where Jackson cooperates with Toyota, Honda, MHI and other Bridgestone and other companies that we all know that are originally not necessarily space. Of course, this is a huge investment for Japan too in turn that the uh US government agreed to provide two flight opportunities of Japanese astronauts to the surface of the moon. Now this is was a highlight of the state visit of Prime Minister Kishida back then. And of course later on our prime minister Ishiba also has endorsed with the meeting in February with President Trump this initiative and also it's in the presidential budget request also on the NASA side. We are very excited that we have this very historic and hopefully in the future few years becoming also even more historic as we build the rover Toyota rover have it drive a Japanese astronaut driving it together with maybe a US or maybe another astronaut on the surface of the moon. This will be groundbreaking and nothing that anybody has seen before. The government leading this kind of innovative programs at the risk level, investment level that is very difficult for the private industry to carry out and to raise excitement, morale and willingness to invest to keep investing in this type of very important space technology that would benefit us in for generations. This is one of the very important role of the government at the moment and when that goes in tandem with something like the space strategy fund or the other initiatives that I just mentioned I think this is the best way to make the space economy work and that's the model that Japan is pursuing at the moment. >> So this is interesting and you know maybe I'll ask a question to back up. I mean, if you were to look at the future, this the turtle rover with a Japanese astronaut, what side of the road will they be driving on in the moon? And because that question gets into the fact that as Japan, we're surrounded by this emergence of 80 plus space nations and the private sector now coming in and we have the outer space treaty that was originally developed. But do we have the right governance mechanism? Do you determine which side of the road on the moon the rover should be on? I mean, what is your vision of what a sustainable space economy could look like in 2040 or 2050? >> I love that segueing into the rules of the road. So um we haven't got that far yet to decide which side of the road that we will be driving on the moon yet. But of course this um governance is a challenge for all of us when many countries not just a few are heading now to the lunar surface and then beyond and also a proliferated um LEO low earth orbit geostationary orbit um and maybe in the near future ASUS lunar orbit. We all need rules of the road as you say and that's what we are just trying to start discussing internationally I think we we really have to speed up this conversation um and dialogue to enhance it to concrete rule making of course that's a challenge though in many ways because there are many different interests and it's no different from even if there are no borders in space It's not really different from the negotiations we have on Earth. What happened though for a very rare and one only single case of rulemaking legally binding instrument that exists internationally for the surface of the moon is the agreement that I just mentioned and that's the agreement between a treaty level agreement for Japan that was the framework agreement that was signed between the US in Japan in on in January 2023 and under that was the pressurized rover implementing agreement that was signed in 2024. This is as far as I know the only legally binding and bilateral instrument that was signed between two countries and this is legally binding instrument to be signed for the rules of the surface of the moon is not easy. Therefore, it hasn't been it hasn't happened really and to the detail that we need for program planning. This is very rare. Why start here is I see in the coming years jumping maybe to the conclusion of all the people keep asking what will be the governance model for the future at least in the near future. I think it will be a combination of these bilateral contracts and agreements because it's too difficult as we see at the moment to reach a legally binding rule regulation if not for a unilateral one set forth by one country that might be possible but even bilateral is very difficult multilateral is much much more difficult. I think we will start out from maybe unilateral or bilateral and then the combination of those providing a web of governance and then that gradually forming into bre best practices and in the future multilateral rules that's how I see it might evolve in reality there it may not be the ideal path forward but I think that's what's happening in reality and those who can do first or second or third I think bear a huge responsibility therefore in setting forth these rules >> fantastic well now that's a very aspirational and kind of visionary sense and it shows that the importance and weight of those whether the first second third fourth mover those early movers in really setting the precedent setting the right value systems which could you determine the future we see this on planet earth with how the Arctic is governed versus Antarctica the different value systems and treaties that have been set up. And so I think what you've said forms the basis of the next you half century of of civilization in space. With that, we're probably coming to the top of our podcast. And so you Masami, I'd like to thank you on behalf of Mickey and myself. I think you know some of the takeaways from this discussion is just the unique role that you know yourself, Jaxa, Japan can play in this very complex set of negotiations and part stakeholders who involved in the space economy. You know, it's what's interesting is Japan's role from an early pioneer in space through to continuing to innovate do pioneering missions that haven't been done and as Mickey mentioned the adjacencies with the precision manufacturing, the focus on sustainability and also the partnership approach has been a very unique and novel approach and that's something which I've certainly taken away from this discussion. So on behalf of Mickey and myself, thank you Mami for for sharing your wisdom and insights with us. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. It was a pleasure.