TOKYO, March 7, 2023—Could it be an overblown speculation that the March 7, 2023 launch failure of Japan’s next-generation rocket, H3, was to be blamed on the country’s bureaucracy and like-minded private-sector contractors for the disaster?
Government officials are not saying anything at all about who and which entities of the government are responsible for the accident except a Cabinet Office news release confirming that the launch failure and that the cause is being investigated.
At a news conference on the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launch site of Tanegashima island March 7 afternoon, the launch director, Mr. Okada, explained that the second-stage rocket failed to activate so JAXA transmitted signals to drop the entire rocket in waters off the Philippines. He said the cause of the misfiring was being investigated.
H3 is Japan’s next-generation rocket supposedly capable of launching payloads at half the price of its predecessor, H2A. The Japanese government has invested $1.5 billion to date to develop H3, the R&D work that’s been going on since as far back as 2014. H3 was carrying an advanced reconnaissance satellite Daichi 3, $280 million satellite capable of close Earth observation as well as defense reconnaissance. After the first H3 rocket launch, Japan was planning to send H3-II later this year to send satellites from Japanese and overseas businesses.
The H3 launch had been postponed for years and was to be executed finally on Feb. 17, when the rocket malfunctions were found, forcing JAXA to postpone until the next launch deadline of March 10, and the space agency in enigmatic haste lit the fuse to the engine on March 7, leaving less than 4 weeks before fiscal 2022 ends on March 31, 2023. Mr. Okada told a virtual news conference that JAXA decided to launch H3 after fixing the Feb. 17 technical problems, denying that JAXA tried to launch before March 31.
JAXA receives its budget from more than a half dozen ministries each year. Japanese government entities must spend all budgeted monies by the end of fiscal year by long-time practice. Carryovers into the next fiscal year are basically not allowed and leftovers are forfeited with next year budgets trimmed. It’s probable that JAXA acquiesced to bureaucracy pressure and rushed the H3 launch, though it could not have been confirmed.
That JAXA probably has been under bureaucracy pressure to expedite the launch can be underscored by the fact that at least nine ministries – practically all major entities are allocating their budgets to space development by JAXA: The Cabinet Office serving as de facto secretariat (it doesn’t have offices to directly administer space policy) for the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture; Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport; Ministry of Defense; the National Police Agency; Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications； Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry; Ministry of the Environment; and the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries.
They have big stakes in space, especially after the U.S.-China relations have begun straining as they must prepare for southern Japan crises in the event of conflicts in the East China Sea.
Structure-wise, too, JAXA looks like a bureaucracy branch, with its senior officials mostly coming from University of Tokyo sharing alumni with many bureaucrats that are graduates from the same university.
This was not the first time that JAXA’s rockets failed. Its H2 developed troubles in the past taking years for its program’s redemption to schedule. H3 is feared to follow the same path because the bureaucracy is afraid of failures. JAXA’s Mr. Okada argued that his agency is not launching rockets for failures but seemed to confirm that the latest failure would further delay the H3 program – because the bureaucracy doesn’t condone more failures.
Perhaps subconsciously, bureaucrats are aware that they are no fit for tangible projects such as a space program, so, out of fears of taking risks, they might have transferred the H3 project from JAXA, which directly developed and launched rockets through the H2 program, to the private sector. Mr. Okada said at the news conference that in the H3 project, employees of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry as lead contractor overwhelmed JAXA officials, literally entrusting MHI to do everything.
MHI engineers for their part most likely worked on the project like JAXA employees, or as quasi-government employees, feeling a great sense of security and relegating innovations and risk-taking.
In an omen, MHI chucked the government-private regional commercial passenger jet program called the Mitsubishi SpaceJet after six delays. It was the end of Japan’s jet programs for regional to large-size aircraft.
The Mitsubishi jet program finale seems to illustrate, so to speak, the ‘infection’ of MHI employees to bureaucracy virus, though details were not available.
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