Civil Military Integration in Space: Maneki Neko
Undoubtedly, the ongoing missions to the Moon are coming up through civil-military integration. Science is a distant third in priority after military and economic goals. India's space planners have lessons to learn, especially from Japan's beckoning.
The world is gearing up to send humans to the Moon once again. The last humans, primarily Americans who were more technologically and economically capable than their counterparts, went to the Moon on singular lunar landers with minimal paraphernalia to aid them. However, our current efforts are focused on creating a cislunar (between Earth and Moon) connectivity infrastructure that includes communication systems, logistics systems, two separate systems to transport astronauts and their logistics, and additional systems to establish critical infrastructure on the Moon, thereby sustaining a long-term human presence. In the attempt to build out critical infrastructure systems on the Moon, numerous nations have begun to nurture private and public entities that would eventually garner stakes in what could turn out to be the ‘Cis-Lunar Economy.’ In December 2022, Japan got its first-of-its-kind commercial lunar spacecraft launched piggybacking on the US’ SpaceX commercial launch vehicle.
iSpace, a Japanese private company, got its lunar lander designated as ‘Hakuto-M1’ and launched it. The lander, aiming to reach the Moon by mid-April 2023, is carrying with it the transformable lunar rover. Both M1 and Hakuto-R have support from the wider Japanese industry, which is supporting iSpace in managing the construction and operations of this mission. For instance, Japan Airlines, a partner to this mission, wants to contribute to the expansion of human activities in space. Another sponsor, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, is offering new insurance products that offer protection against risks to the mission. Another sponsor, NGK-NTK, has developed an all-solid-state battery, which will be the first of its type to be tested on the Moon. Suzuki, the renowned automobile company, is anticipating certain technologies from Hakuto’s operations that it may want to incorporate into its future cars. Slightly deviating from the topic, the same Maruti Suzuki in India is collaborating with the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad to develop autonomous cars for Indian conditions. The ultralight and compact transformable rover that this mission is carrying is jointly built by the Japanese space agency, JAXA, the electronics giant Sony Corporation, the renowned toy company Tomy Company, and Doshisha University.
This project aside, since 2018, another Japanese airline company, All Nippon Airlines (ANA), in collaboration with JAXA, is working towards a cutting-edge Avatar robotics technology that could employ pilots operating out of Earth-based control stations to operate robots, which would mimic their actions, in low-Earth orbit and on the Moon.
Now, let's turn to the Artemis Exploration Mission-1, a US-led international project that involves signatory partner countries, which was launched in November 2022. This EM-1 also carried two Japanese payloads, the impact probe OMOTENASHI, which failed to communicate within a day of its launch, and a cubesat EQUULEUS, which aims to measure the plasma environments, detect flashes created due to meteoritic impact on the moon’s surface, and detect dust released from the surface due to the same impacts. EQUULEUS is on its way with the other 8 low-cost cubesats. Apart from these missions, JAXA is collaborating with ISRO on the design of the Lunar Polar Exploration (LUPEX) mission, which is scheduled for launch around 2025.
Japan is ramping up its space program, particularly its involvement in the cis-lunar economy, at a time when some sweeping reforms to its constitution are expected. Japan, which, after the Second World War, was mandated to be a pacifist state without its own military, but with a self-defence force, has now decided to ramp up its defence spending to 2% of its GDP by 2027. In December 2022, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced a USD 320 billion military spending.
While these spending measures were announced, the Japanese government released two important new documents: the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy. Through these two documents, Tokyo emphasises the need to “reinforce cooperation and collaboration” among the Ministry of Defense, JAXA, and Japan’s private sector. By doing so, Tokyo aims to utilise civilian technologies for defence purposes, facilitate technology development in its private sector, and comprehensively enhance the country’s overall space capabilities. The National Defense Strategy further explicates Japan’s intent to ‘organically fuse’ capabilities across sea, land, air, cyber and space domains and ensure national defence. In these schemes of things, in early 2023, Japan Air Self-Defense Force will be renamed as Japan Air and Space Self-Defense Force.
The uninitiated might look for reasons why Japan is shedding its imposed pacifism, imposed by the US-led order. However, the informed know that the only reason is China’s effective Jinhai Fangyu (offshore defence) strategy, which was laid out in 1986. With Beijing’s annexation of islands in the South China Sea (the first island chain), Beijing, on its predetermined path to reach the third island chain (Guam and Hawaii, both of which are part of the US), is preparing to combat the second island chain, which consists of Taiwan and Japan. This is the major cause of Japan’s shunning its post-World War imposed pacifism, and Washington is agreeable to releasing the chains it had curtailed Tokyo. These developments have massive ramifications internationally.
Science, worldwide, operates on two fronts – development and security. Both fronts coexist, but the security front dominates both during times of peace and war. During peacetime, the security front works to avert conflicts. But when conflict becomes unavoidable, the security front works to quickly end the conflict. The geopolitical developments, regardless of untiring diplomatic efforts, are indicating higher chances of conflict in East Asia – the same East Asia that is now the epicentre of technology innovation, the same East Asia that has been manufacturing for the entire world for the past four decades, and the same Asia that is an epicentre of the global economy.
To put it realistically, the security front of science will be more important than the development front at least for the next 10-15 years. The year 2022 ended without any substantial resolution to the Ukraine-Russia war, and any other conflict hotspot that emerges hereafter may or may not see a quick resolution of the conflict. Warring countries will likely prepare for enduring, protracted periods of war or localised battles. This preparation is forcing countries to fuse civil and military capabilities in science and technology. China already has a Civil-Military Integration office located in both the State Council and the Central Military Commission, and many countries are following suit.
The Chinese are not the first to begin with; they had lessons to learn from the nearly century-old American military industrial complex. The same American military-industrial complex, now joined by new and nimble-operating space companies, is leading a consortium of entities from partner countries, under the Artemis Accords, to the Moon. The growing participation of private players in outer space activities is a testament to the increasing civil-military integration occurring globally. Japan’s case implies that the international order established after the Second World War is withering rapidly in the face of multiple potential conflicts simmering. Military and security concerns will shape the science of the foreseeable future. Indian institutions, companies, scientists and technocrats must absorb this inevitability.
The original piece was published in the December 2022 edition of Science India.
