Japanese company NEC initiates its own orbital tug project
Having won a grant from Japan’s $6.6 billion strategic fund (designed to encourage private enterprise in space), the Japanese company NEC Corporation has now begun work on its own commercial orbital tug, which it dubs an Orbital Transfer Vehicle (OTV).
Moving forward, NEC plans to conduct market feasibility studies, conceptual design, and demonstrations for OTVs by the end of fiscal year 2027 to clarify the required functions and other specifications. Following this, NEC plans to begin development of a demonstration model in fiscal year 2028, with the goal of launching it and conducting in-space demonstrations in fiscal year 2032, and aims to bring the technology to practical use in the future.
While the overall goal makes sense, the timetable seems far too slow. By the time NEC is ready with its operational OTV in 2032, at least a half dozen tugs will have been in operation for at least three to five years. Already several tugs have flown missions, with several more in the pipeline. Moreover, these companies have found less demand for tugs than expected, and have been repurposing their technology to other purposes.
Regardless, it does appear Japan is beginning to use this strategic fund as intended, to encourage the development of a private space industry, independent of its government space agency JAXA.
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Agree about the seeming lack of urgency anent this project. But Japan’s current complete lack of even partially-reusable launch capability would make the economics of this tug questionable anyway, regardless of its debut date. Perhaps the unstated reason for the 2032 date is that NEC hopes some other Japanese outfit provides a launch vehicle less expensive than the H-3 in the interim. If so, I expect it will be disappointed.
I would like to see more private sector space activity from Japanese companies, but the established firms don’t seem to have much interest in such and the Japanese space start-up scene is pretty small beer even compared to that of Europe, never mind the US. Maybe it’s nothing more than space being about the future and the Japanese increasingly understanding that they do not have one due to their terminal demographics.