Japan’s Office of National Space Policy signs historic Memorandum of Understanding to launch two U.S. payloads on Japan’s Quasi Zenith Satellite System.
WASHINGTON: Japan is on deck this year as the next US ally to formally tie a knot to Space Command, following in the footsteps of France and Germany.
“SPACECOM is working on a memorandum of understanding for collaboration with Japan,” confirmed a spokesperson today.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond foreshadowed Tokyo’s addition to the command’s multinational coordination cell in testimony to Congress last February, when he still heading SPACECOM as well as the Space Force.
“We enhanced our Multi-National Space Collaboration Office at Vandenberg AFB to empower Liaison Officers from Germany, France, and the United Kingdom in order to align policies and TTPs [tactics, techniques and procedures],” he said in his written remarks. “We are actively working to expand this office by adding Japan, Italy, and South Korea to our collaboration efforts.”
The Multinational Space Collaboration Office is separate from SPACECOM’s Combined Space Operations Center (CSpOC), although they are co-located at Vandenberg AFB. CSpOC is where the US allies of the Five Eyes intelligence coalition — Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, with the US as the fifth — sit side-by-side with US satellite operators and participate in threat briefings and planning. The multinational cell works at a slightly lesser level of classification to allow participation of allies without the same level of access to US secrets.
Current SPACECOM Chief Army Gen. James Dickinson has been moving aggressively to build a web of multilateral ties, including considering how to embed allied officers on his own staff.
Space Force, too, is focusing on international partnerships in developing capabilities, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region to counter China’s rising space power. “Over the last several years we’ve been aggressively expanding our partnerships with France and Germany and Japan as well, looking to expand it with the Republic of Korea,” Space Force Vice Chief Gen. DT Thompson told the Association of Old Crows in January.
“The US doesn’t go anywhere alone, we don’t do it alone around the world, and we certainly don’t do it alone in space,” Lt. Gen. Nina M. Armagno, Space Force staff director said yesterday. “So the notion that building alliances is is key to success is not lost on the Space Force,” she told a webinar sponsored by the University of Washington.
The US and Japan in particular have been working on increasing their cooperation on space domain awareness. Japan will launch US space situational awareness (SSA) sensors on its Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) going into Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) to help keep an eye on Chinese space activities.
Space Force in December announced the formal agreement that will see the optical sensor payloads built by the Space and Missile Systems Center launch on the Japanese sats from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
“Enhancing Space Domain Awareness is just the first step in expanding our space partnership with Japan,” Kelli Seybolt, Air Force deputy undersecretary for international affairs said in the Space Force press release. “We look forward to building on this agreement as we deepen and expand space cooperation with our trusted ally.”
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