From June 10th to 14th, The Luxembourg Space Agency took part in the economic mission to Japan, and seized the opportunity to reinforce the already fruitful collaboration with its Japanese counterpart and visit the Japanese space ecosystem.
The CEO of the LSA, Marc Serres, and the agency’s delegation started their trip to Japan with a visit in ispace’s premises.
This visit was the opportunity to discuss the upcoming M2 Mission, which will embark a rover “Made in Luxembourg”, but also to explore the lessons learned from the M1 mission, and get feedback on the data collected last year. It included a tour of the Tokyo Mission Control room, which will operate in parallel with the one located in Luxembourg for the M2 mission. Potential collaborations with ispace in the framework of its future missions, including the M4 mission have also been on the table.
On the second day of the mission, the space delegation visited the Tansa X Space Exploration Innovation Hub Center, located on the JAXA Sagamihara Campus. The center is focusing on innovative research projects in the field of “exploration technology in a wide range of unexplored areas”, automatic and autonomous exploration technology” and “In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) technology.”
The visit included a meeting with JAXA's President, Dr. Hiroshi YAMAKAWA, and was the occasion for both agencies to confirm their mutual interest in deepening their collaboration, as stated in the Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) signed on the third day of the mission.
The MoC aims at exploring and facilitating collaboration in the framework of space projects of mutual benefit, specifically in the areas of space exploration, supercomputing, mutual use of facilities, and commercialization.
It is reinforced by another MoC signed at the Government level, which will catalyse and significantly deepen cooperation between the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and Japan in the field of space. It aims at further facilitating research, exploration, development, and use of space, not only by the two countries, but also by academic and research institutes and private sector space companies.
The first concrete implementation project of these MoC is the LoI signed between LuxProvide and JAXA to formalize their collaboration in the domains of Space, Supercomputing, Quantum and AI. The cooperation will facilitate the exchange of knowledge, finding joint solutions to common pain points, and delivering better services to the user communities supported by both organizations, creating more impact for the respective Space ecosystems.
The program also included visits to the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Astroscale and the NIPPON Telegraph and Telephone Corporation Headquarters, as well as a space event focusing on satellite communication (specifically direct-to-device satellite connectivity and secure communications), and the lunar economy.
