The launch of Japan’s first dedicated military communications satellite is to be delayed by two years after a mishap with a blue tarpaulin damaged sensitive antennas during transportation to Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, two government sources said.
The mishap has set back plans by the Japanese military to unify its fractured and overburdened communications network, and could hinder efforts to reinforce defenses in the East China Sea as Chinese military activity in the region escalates.
“When we need to shift units to the southwest and troops are moving down from the north, we need a stable communications link and this delay could affect that,” a senior Japanese Ministry of Defense official said on condition he was not identified because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The satellite was damaged in a plane’s cargo hold on May 25 after a tarpaulin blocked valves used to equalize its container’s internal air pressure as it descended into thicker atmosphere when landing in French Guiana, according to an internal government document.
The Japanese document did not detail who was responsible for the mishap, or whether they suffered any consequences.
The damage would take more than a year to fix and could force Japan to pay tens of millions of US dollars for stop-gap access to commercial communications satellites it currently uses, the sources said.
“We are not yet at the point where we can decide on a new launch window. We want to do it as soon as we can,” a defense ministry spokesman said.
The satellite is first of three planned X-band satellites that plan to to deliver a unified communications network designed to quadruple the broadband capacity of Japan’s Self Defense Forces.
The military needs the X-band system as it reinforces its defenses along its far-flung southwest island chain that stretches along the southern edge of the East China Sea almost to Taiwan.
The lack of a common communications platform between Japan’s armed forces hampered rescue operations in the wake 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan’s northeastern coast.
Tokyo and Beijing are locked in a territorial dispute in the East China Sea over a group of uninhabited islands known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan and China and the Senkakus in Japan.
Taiwan also claims the disputed islands.
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