[Provisional Translation]

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the 15th meeting of the Strategic Headquarters for Space Development at the Prime Minister's Office.

At the meeting, there was a briefing on the revision of the Work Schedule of the Basic Plan for Space Policy.

Based on the briefing, the Prime Minister said,

“The government will strengthen the international competitiveness of Japan’s space industry. We will revise the Work Schedule of the Basic Plan for Space Policy within this year in order to steadily work toward that goal.

We successfully launched the quasi-zenith satellite MICHIBIKI No. 2 at the start of this month. We will launch MICHIBIKI No. 3 and No. 4 within this fiscal year, to form a four-satellite constellation. This will enable us to offer precision measurement services that are accurate up to a few centimeters from next fiscal year.

The widespread use of these services by industries and in the lives of the people will mark a great step forward toward Society 5.0. We will continue to support efforts to produce success after success in the use of the big data from satellite information for the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries industries, disaster risk reduction and infrastructure maintenance, and other fields.

Space systems such as satellites and terrestrial communications facilities have now become indispensable foundations for people’s lives. We will advance discussions on safety measures such as dealing with space debris that could accidentally collide with satellites. At the same time, we will continue to strengthen the Government’s system for responding to this kind of outer space risk.

I would like the relevant ministers to work closely together, under the leadership of the Minister of State for Space Policy, in order to realize these efforts.”