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On December 13, 2019, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe held the 21st meeting of the Strategic Headquarters for Space Development at the Prime Minister’s Office.
 
At the meeting, a discussion was held on the FY2019 revision of the Implementation Plan of the Basic Plan on Space Policy.
 
Based on the discussion, the Prime Minister said,
 
“Today we revised the Implementation Plan of the Basic Plan on Space Policy.
 
Regarding the lunar exploration plan of the United States, in which Japan has announced its participation in October, Europe also announced its participation at the end of November. It is expected that, therefore, the preparations will pick up momentum towards the materialization of this plan going forward. In order to ensure our contributions to the materialization of the plan and secure Japan’s presence throughout the process, I ask you to accelerate the considerations over our cooperation, which explicitly appears in the Implementation Plan.
 
In Japan, we are seeing an increasing number of start-ups and other initiatives taking on the challenge of developing new space businesses. Efforts are even being made towards the commercialization of suborbital flights in Japan within the early 2020s. I ask you, in particular the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, to advance the creation of an environment that fosters new space businesses, including accelerating the development of the system necessary to materialize that. I also ask you to implement this newly revised Plan steadily, such as through utilization of satellites and other technologies in disaster response, as well as initiatives to ensure space security.
 
Next year will be when we revise the Basic Plan on Space Policy itself. I ask the relevant ministers, in particular Minister Takemoto, to collaborate with each other towards the formulation of a strategic space policy that can carve out the coming era of space development.”