U.S.-Japan Space Forum Meeting XII
Key Takeaways••••

The war in Ukraine has proved that satellites are an indispensable tool of wartime strategy making
through their role in enabling communications, imaging, and other services necessary for an effective
understanding of the battlefield. All nations must act now to incorporate and strengthen theirdomestic contingency planning and defense strategies to ensure continuity of use for space assets inwartime.
The U.S. and Japan should be each other’s preeminent security partners in space – bar none.
However, we must overcome major challenges to make this ideal into a reality. Among these, a lackof standardized criteria for data, personnel, and facility security is a key concern that both partners
must address. Many private companies in Japan have already developed proprietary information
security procedures, but there is not yet a universal certification backed by the Government of Japanthat they can use to prove their compliance to international partners.
Large satellite constellations are particularly transformative for maritime domain awareness, though it
has major impacts across all areas of security. Getting high resolution, frequent images of activities in
the maritime domain enables nations of all sizes to strategically deploy their limited resources tomaximum effect.
o The emergent need for more effective space traffic management and space situationalawareness is well-documented by other organizations, but this Forum felt it was worthemphasizing again given the major implications that large satellites have on the operating
environment in low earth orbit (LEO).
Private leadership in space is here, and private companies strongly desire regulatory clarity andconsistency in the United States and around the world so they can innovate more quickly andcollaboratively. They accept the crucial role of government oversight in protecting criticalinformation from bad actors, and strongly urge the United State and all spacefaring nations tocentralize and streamline their regulatory mechanisms, especially as related to spacecraft launches.
Spreading regulatory responsibility across disjointed agencies and actors forces nascent spacecompanies to duplicate effort without a corresponding increase in safety or security.
o Supply chains and export controls further complicate the operating environment for spaceindustries. Much work has been done in the United States to improve supply chain reliability,
and Japan also shares a growing awareness of supply chains as an important element of its
national economic well-being. However, the regulations around export controls andTechnology Security Agreements (TSAs) could be clarified further to give companies abetter understanding of what actions they must take to both operate internationally and topartner with international organizations.

Policy Recommendations•The U.S. Government must work with the Japanese government and others to harmonize processes
for ensuring that all partners in sharing arrangements are satisfied that information, technologies, andother areas of concern are adequately protected. These processes should include certification,training, and compliance reviews through which specific access control limits can be set to best serve
international security objectives while respecting each country’s national security concerns.

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The underlying principle should be “high fences around small plots.” Critical technologies
must be protected, but we also cannot work in a complete vacuum from one another if weare to nurture successful space industries.
Emerging spacefaring nations, such as the Philippines, Vietnam, and Australia, must be considered
and directly involved in the conversation about creating standardized licensing and certification toensure that any U.S.-Japan framework will be built to accommodate new partners rather than exclude
them. In an era of growing geopolitical competition, a focus on what can be achieved for thecommon good will be welcomed by these partner nations.
There is a growing awareness that sustainability applies to the space domain as much as Earth, andthe safe future use of LEO depends on our ability to enact new regulation for clear end-of-life plans
for all satellites. This is especially true as more large constellations enter this orbit. The U.S. andJapan must work together to devise better systems for registering, tracking, servicing, anddecommissioning space assets to ensure attribution and verify that relevant laws regard end-of-lifeplans have been duly observed.
o There are exceptions that must be made for assets critical to national security, but for thisconcern we refer back to the “high fences around small plots” concept mentioned earlier.
The U.S. and Japan should work with regional partners to invest in and support the growth ofmaritime domain awareness as a common good for all nations, including the ones which do notpossess or possess limited space capabilities. This can be done by expanding existing fora such as theU.S.-Japan Comprehensive Dialogue on Space to include observers from nations such as thePhilippines, Vietnam, and Australia with a mechanism in place to eventually form a full-fledged
dialogue between the Indo-Pacific spacefaring nations.
o Both the U.S. Government and the Government of Japan should continue the trend ofincreasing investment in their respective military space branches, namely the Space Forceand the Space Operations Squadron, so that these services can expand their ability to pursue
international capacity building exercises, provide public goods, and promote spacesustainability.
The Artemis Accords facilitate government-to-government cooperation in space, and private actors
should form a private version of the Accords to enable better industry coordination. Existing global
fora such as the Lunar Industry Business Council or the International Astronautical Congress could
be used as the launching points to discuss specific proposals for a business-to-business version of theArtemis Accords.