Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is moving forward on their plans for a Space Solar Power System (SSPS), in which arrays of photovoltaic dishes several square kilometres in size would hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth's atmosphere,capture solar energy, and beam it down to the ground through clusters of lasers or microwaves.

Researchers at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have begun to develop a Space Solar Power System (SSPS) consisting of giant solar collectors in geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometres above the Earth’s surface.

Uranium exists on the moon, according to new data from a Japanese spacecraft. The revelation suggests that nuclear power plants could be built on the moon, or even that Earth's satellite could serve as a mining source for uranium needed back home.

Michio Kaku surveys the growing number nations planning competing missions to the moon (including Japan, China, India, and the U.S.) and argues that the growing lunar competition should motivate a re-examination of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty "before national rivalries and tensions heat up as we approach 2020."

Takashi Yokota reviews some of the economic and political reasons why, even with the growing threat of a nuclear North Korea, Japan is unlikely to pursue their own nuclear arsenal.

A Japanese ruling party panel is to propose that pre-emptive strikes against enemy bases be allowed despite the country's pacifist constitution, Kyodo news agency said on Monday, weeks after a North Korean missile launch.

Japan hopes to have a two-legged robot walk on the moon by around 2020, with a joint mission involving astronauts and robots to follow, according to a plan laid out Friday by a government group.

Japan is considering putting a robot on the moon by 2020 and an astronaut by 2030, a report from a government office showed on Friday, amid fears that the country will be left behind in Asia's space race.

The Japanese Defense Ministry is thinking of developing an early warning satellite that can detect ballistic missiles in their boost phase to increase the effectiveness of the missile shield it is building.

Japan is hosting an international conference in November to draw up a timetable for a space-elevator machine to power carriages that climb 22,000 miles into space on a carbon nanotube fiber.