DesertFox
07-20-2008, 04:04 PM
The US space agency, NASA, is reportedly negotiating the purchase of unmanned Japanese transfer spacecraft to replace its own ageing shuttles.
The Yomiuri newspaper says NASA has began unofficial negotiations with Japan's space agency, with such a deal being the biggest in Japan's 50-year space development history.
The H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV), which costs about 14 billion yen ($134.67 million) each, is being developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and domestic companies including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd and Mitsubishi Electric Corp, the Yomiuri said.
Behind the move is NASA's concern that the retirement of its space shuttles in 2010 will make it difficult for the US to fulfil its responsibilities to deliver water, food and materials for scientific experiments to the International Space Station, the paper said.
In April, NASA started a project to assist US companies' development of a spacecraft to succeed the space shuttle, but it is uncertain whether the successor could be developed in the two years left before the retirement, and that prompted NASA to discuss buying foreign spacecraft.
Japan's HTV will be introduced next autumn and the spacecraft will be launched at the rate of one per year.
If the reports are correct it would be the first time that American space officials had looked abroad for such orders.
Source (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/20/2308950.htm?section=justin)
The Yomiuri newspaper says NASA has began unofficial negotiations with Japan's space agency, with such a deal being the biggest in Japan's 50-year space development history.
The H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV), which costs about 14 billion yen ($134.67 million) each, is being developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and domestic companies including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd and Mitsubishi Electric Corp, the Yomiuri said.
Behind the move is NASA's concern that the retirement of its space shuttles in 2010 will make it difficult for the US to fulfil its responsibilities to deliver water, food and materials for scientific experiments to the International Space Station, the paper said.
In April, NASA started a project to assist US companies' development of a spacecraft to succeed the space shuttle, but it is uncertain whether the successor could be developed in the two years left before the retirement, and that prompted NASA to discuss buying foreign spacecraft.
Japan's HTV will be introduced next autumn and the spacecraft will be launched at the rate of one per year.
If the reports are correct it would be the first time that American space officials had looked abroad for such orders.
Source (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/20/2308950.htm?section=justin)