Japan's 'White Stork' soars heavenwards to ISS Japan earlier today successfully launched its Kounotori 5 ("White Stork 5") ISS resupply vehicle from Tanegashima Space Center. Carrying 5.5 tonnes of scientific equipment and supplies, Kounotori 5 was lifted aloft by an H-IIB rocket in a dramatic night-time fire and smoke spectacle. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency ( …
This post has been deleted by its author
It's not an ICBM if you don't have any warheads to put on the top, although I'll admit that an ISS resupply vessel landing on your house would ruin your day.
To answer your question though, Japan launched it's first satellite in 1970.
World's biggest stockpile of unnatural Pu (half-life twenty thousand and something years), outside the USA, possibly Russia, China, and Israel. Supposed to be used for power generation. I have not researched deeply,
Obviously, there is a contingency plan to use the stockpile in another way. Almost all reactors are still shut down, and they are all designed for U-235, I do not have the expertise to know if Pu-239 can be used in the same way in them, but from what I do know, it seems improbable.
When did Japan start building ICBMs?
Sort of a trick question, since the H-IIB would make a really poor ICBM. Oh, sure, it has plenty of throw weight, but after that it's a stinker.
First, the H-IIB first and second stage run on liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, which are singularly poor ICBM propellants. They don't store long at all. I mean, even in the 1950s liquid-fueled ICBMs were using room-temperature storable liquids because they were going to sit around for years before war broke out. Liquid oxygen needs more infrastructure to keep chilled, ready, and safe than even its obnoxious alternatives, nitric acid and nitrous oxide, though the US made it work in the 1950s before hurriedly transitioning to solids. And liquid hydrogen is an abject failure for long-term storage in military conditions, particularly since there are alternative fuels (like kerosene, hydrazine, and UDMH).
Second, the H-IIB is a hangar queen like most liquid-fueled satellite launchers. It needs a lot of preparation, a large launch pad, and long set-up times. It's great-great-great American grandpappy, the PGM-17 Thor, could be readied in 15 minutes (considered sadly slow by the advent of solid-fueled ICBMs), but it didn't have to contend with liquid hydrogen pre-chilling procedures and second stages like the H-IIB.
No, the H-IIB is not an ICBM, and it is not indicative that the Japanese are planning evil. By the time they assemble, process, fuel, and launch an ICBM, the war would probably be over.
Rather, what you need to look at are the relatives of the H-IIB's strap-on booster, which are solid fueled. If the Japanese are launching orbital payloads on all-solid rockets, then you've got reasons to send weapon inspectors for a look. All-solid stacks will work for satellite loads, but they're usually less ideal than liquid-fueled rockets for civilian payloads. If someone's using all-solid rockets for civilian launches then either:
1) They've got a lot of leftover ICBM motors with some profit potential, like the US and Russia. See: Minotaur, Dnepr. Or,
2) They're ironing out the bugs of their ICBM program under the guise of a civilian program, presumably while twirling their evil mustache and petting a long-haired white cat in their secret volcano layer. See: Shavit, aka Jericho III.
One notes Japan has volcanoes and white cats, and about 50% of their adult population can have mustaches.
"If the Japanese are launching orbital payloads on all-solid rockets, then you've got reasons to send weapon inspectors for a look."
You mean like the Japanese Epsilon satellite launcher?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epsilon_%28rocket%29
It doesn't have the lift capacity of the JAXA H2A or the H2B (the ISS resupply launcher) but it could certainly put a small-ball Bucket of Instant Sunshine pretty much anywhere on the planet in less time than it takes you to get a Deliveroo pizza delivered to the wrong door on a different street.
They've test-fired it once, it worked, they don't seem in much of a hurry to launch another one.
ESA has the Vega (aka Berlusconi's Bottle Rocket), same principle although it's been launched a few times now unlike the Epsilon.
"You mean like the Japanese Epsilon satellite launcher?"
That is exactly what I mean. The Epsilon is very similar in mass, diameter, and length to the LGM-118 Peacekeeper (MX missile), though the underlying motors differ. The MX had a sub-orbital throw weight of under 3000kg, while the Epsilon has a LEO throw weight of 1,200kg. Very similar critters.
Don't worry about H-IIB ICBMs, worry about Epsilon knockoffs and weird justifications from the Japanese about storing them in silos or on mobile train launchers. :)
Yokosuka naval base south of Tokyo is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the United States Navy. It usually has a CVBG parked there i.e about 10% of the US' capital ship fleet. Time was the Yokosuka carrier was the Kittyhawk since it was the last conventionally-powered fleet carrier the USN had but it's now gone to the great razor-blade factory and the carrier parked there is currently the Reagan or maybe the Washington, both nuclear-powered of course.
A lot of the Japanese fleet is based on US designs like the Aegis cruisers in part so they can interoperate with the Americans. They've been carrying out exercises with the USN for decades.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2023
