Japan is offering $940 million to fund space start-ups in a new push to grow the industry, the government announced Tuesday at an event in Tokyo.

The funds will be made available through investments and loans over the next five years, as part of a government-led initiative to double Japan's more than $11 billion space industry. With less than 20 Japanese space start-ups currently operating, many see this as critical to helping new companies cover costs such as research or applying for patents.

"We believe this will be remembered as a turning point for our burgeoning industry," Takeshi Hakamada, CEO and founder of lunar exploration start-up ispace, said in a statement.

Ispace has received government backing in the past, including during a recent $90.2 million round of funding that included Suzuki Motor and Japan Airlines. Founded seven years ago, ispace is stepping beyond the Google-backed Lunar XPRIZE competition to fund two exploration missions to the moon, with the first by the end of 2019 and the second by the end of 2020.

The Japanese government is setting up an agency to manage the funds and connect start-ups with local talent from organizations such as the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency or the rocket-building arm of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Initially, start-ups will be eligible to each receive about $100,000 in aid to help present concepts to investors. Promising ventures and more mature companies will be able to tap into the rest of the $940 million fund to further development.

Japan also announced it is considering new laws and policies that would allow businesses to own plots of land developed on the moon, in a similar manner to the laws passed by the United States and Luxembourg. So far, the U.S. and Luxembourg are the only two countries in the world to have passed laws giving corporations ownership of materials mined in space, but only after they've been extracted. That legal framework has seen the tiny European country attract dozens of space companies, with another 70 space companies looking to establish in Luxembourg, according to Deputy Prime Minister Etienne Schneider.

While ispace is based in Japan, the company also has subsidiary offices in Luxembourg and California. Having a legal framework of ownership will be critical to the start-up's success once exploratory missions begin collecting materials and information.

"We're going to bring scientific instruments to the moon, and then sell the right to use our data to space agencies and other institutions, as well as provide transportation services, for profit," Hakamada said.

Japan's announcement comes after a record year for U.S. commercial space companies, which received more than $3.9 billion in private investment last year. Venture capital is both pouring into the U.S. sector and finding success: Over 120 firms made investments in space last year, topping a peak of 89 in 2015. The last eight years have seen around $25 billion in exits, as acquisitions and public offerings take venture capital investments from start-ups to the next level. </s> 'I choose to go to the moon!'

A Japanese internet entrepreneur is to be the first "space tourist" to fly round the moon.

Billionaire Yusaku Maezawa declared "I choose to go the the moon" after being introduced by SpaceX's chief executive Elon Musk at the company's headquarters in California.

The ex punk band drummer made his money in online fashion with his company Zozo and is the 18th richest person in Japan with a fortune of $3bn, according to Forbes magazine.

Maezawa, 42, will take his trip round the moon in SpaceX's Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) spaceship and will be the first man to travel to Earth's only natural satellite since the US ended its Apollo missions in 1972.

It is not clear how much he has paid for the trip. Nor is it known when the flight will take place as BFR has yet to be built.

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Mr Musk has said he wants the rocket to be ready for an unpiloted trip to Mars in 2022, with a crewed flight in 2024.

Elon Musk's SpaceX launches satellite into orbit

In announcing the moon flight Mr Musk has stolen a march on his rivals for space tourist dollars.

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic are also battling it out to launch private-sector spacecraft, but neither have so far announced plans as ambitious as SpaceX.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Bieber are among those who have so far signed up for 90 minute sub-orbital flights with Virgin Galactic at a cost of $250,000.

Short sightseeing trips to space aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket are likely to cost around $200,000 to $300,000.

Image: Dennis Tito paid to travel to the International Space Station in 2001

The first space tourist was American billionaire Dennis Tito who in 2001 paid to spend eight days in orbit as a crew member of ISS EP-1, a visiting mission to the International Space Station. </s> SpaceX revealed Monday that Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa will be its first space tourist.

Maezawa has chartered a flight aboard the company's Big Falcon Rocket, which is still being developed, for a slingshot trip around the Moon as soon as 2023. He's planning to take six to eight artists with him on the mission free of charge.

"I want to share this experience and things with as many people as possible," Maezawa told a news conference. "So, I choose to go to the Moon with artists."

The trip will take four or five days, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said at the event.

SpaceX made the announcement from its headquarters in Hawthorne, California — not far from where the Emmy awards were being handed out in Los Angeles on Monday evening.

Maezawa is a rock musician, online fashion mogul and, more recently, a high-rolling art collector. A video presentation about him said he believes art can help usher in world peace.

He wondered on stage what John Lennon, Coco Chanel, Michael Jackson or Andy Warhol would have created had they seen the Moon up close.

Maezawa, whose net worth is estimated at $2.9 billion by Forbes, plans to work with the SpaceX team to select his fellow passengers.

"If you hear from me, please say yes," the Japanese tycoon pleaded. He also encouraged Musk to join the mission.

"As far as me going, I'm not sure," Musk responded. "Maybe we'll both be on it."

Future announcements about the project, which Maezawa is calling "#dearMoon," will be posted on a website and social media accounts under the same name.

The Japanese billionaire has made a down payment for the mission, but the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"He puts his money where his mouth is," Musk said, describing the amount as "non-trivial."

Maezawa made his fortune by building up Start Today, an e-commerce business that includes a popular online clothing site in Japan. He drew attention last year with the purchase of a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting for $110.5 million.

Maezawa will fly on the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR, a new spaceship system that SpaceX is building. It consists of a massive rocket booster that promises to out-power any that has ever been built and a towering spacecraft, nicknamed BFS for Big Falcon Spaceship, that will vault out of the Earth's atmosphere.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said at a conference outside Washington earlier Monday that she hoped the spaceship would be making short test flights next year.

Shotwell also said the full rocket could reach orbit for the first time in 2020 and possibly deliver cargo to the Moon or Mars in 2022.

"I know that sounds crazy, and we don't usually meet our time lines, but I wanted you to know at least order of magnitude, that's what we're thinking," Shotwell said. "And it sounds crazy but everything we've ever done has sounded crazy to people, both people that love us and people that don't like us so much."

Musk cautioned at the news conference that SpaceX is not certain about the 2023 timing for the moon tourism mission.

He said SpaceX has updated the design for the BFR rocket for the third time in three years. He showed off images of the hardware under construction and a test fire of the vehicle's massive Raptor engine.

The latest blueprints mark the final major redesign of the rocket, whose development is expected to cost roughly $5 billion, according to Musk.

Asked why the company made further changes, Musk said he "did not like the aesthetics" of the previous version. The new design, he added, "might be better," but "it's slightly riskier technically."

SpaceX has launched more than 60 missions to deliver cargo or satellites into orbit over the past eight years — all of them without humans on board.

The tourism announcement comes as the company is racing to meet a tight deadline to start flying astronauts to and from the International Space Station aboard its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft.

The United States hasn't had the ability to put humans in orbit since the Space Shuttle era ended in 2011. Since then, NASA has relied on Russia to ferry astronauts to the space station.

Shotwell said Monday that SpaceX is planning to conduct a test flight of a version of the Dragon capsule that can carry astronauts before the end of the year. It aims to launch its first crewed mission to the space station in the second quarter of 2019.

When will 'everyday people' get to visit space?

SpaceX has not talked much about putting private citizens in space since February 2017. That's when the company announced it would send two paying customers on a trip around the Moon in 2018 aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket, which became the most powerful operational rocket in the world after its maiden voyage earlier this year.

Musk later reversed course, saying the company no longer has plans to certify the Falcon Heavy for human spaceflight.

SpaceX has said it views space tourism as "an important step toward enabling access for everyday people who dream of traveling to space."

Two of Musk's fellow billionaires — Amazon's (AMZN) Jeff Bezos and Virgin Group's Richard Branson — also want to make a business out of space tourism.

Their ventures plan to conduct short suborbital trips during which passengers can briefly experience weightlessness and an expansive view of Earth.

But it's not clear when space tourism might become available for "everyday people."

Branson's Virgin Galactic has sold tickets for about $250,000, which is more than the median home price in the United States. Bezos' Blue Origin has been tight-lipped about the price of its tickets, but Reuters reported in July that they could cost in the $200,000 range. Blue Origin denied the report to CNN, saying ticket prices had not yet been set. </s> Australia will establish a national space agency to grow its space industry, the government has said.

The nation is one of the only developed countries in the world not to have a space agency.

Acting Industry Minister Michaelia Cash said it was "crucial" that Australia capitalised on the rapid growth of the global space industry.

It follows a domestic industry review which had called for a dedicated body to be established.

"The agency will be the anchor for our domestic co-ordination and the front door for our international engagement," Ms Cash said.

Political and industry leaders hope it will lead to thousands of new jobs.

The Australian government estimates the global space industry to be worth more than A$400bn (£235bn; $318bn).
• Four reasons India is going big on space

Ms Cash is expected to announce further details at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide this week.

The conference will be attended by thousands of global space experts, including the heads of other national agencies and private companies.

Australia and Iceland are the only OECD nations without a space agency, according to the Space Industry Association of Australia. </s> Australia will establish a national space agency to grow its space industry, the government has said.

The announcement of an Australian space agency was made at the opening of 68th International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide and followed the Commonwealth’s decision to conduct a review of the nation’s engagement with the space industry.

Australia’s decision to establish a national space agency isn’t a ‘man on the moon’ exercise but a bid to secure a share of the booming space market, the federal government says.

Acting Industry Minister, Michaelia Cash, said it was “crucial” that Australia capitalised on the rapid growth of the global space industry.

The Australian government estimates the global space industry to be worth about A$420bn (£247bn; $323bn) each year. </s> TOKYO-A Japanese probe has reached an asteroid 300 million kilometres away to collect information about the birth of the solar system and the origin of life after a more than three-year voyage through deep space.

The Hayabusa2 probe successfully settled into an observation position 20 kilometres (12 miles) above the Ryugu asteroid, officials from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said Wednesday.

Researchers broke out into cheers when the probe arrived in place, a feat JAXA described as “shooting from Japan at a six centimetre target in Brazil”.

“Today, we are at the beginning of a space science exploration that is unprecedented for humankind,” project manager Yuichi Tsuda told reporters.

The successful mission came just days before the UN’s International Asteroid Day on June 30, a global event to raise awareness about the hazards of an asteroid impact and technological progress to counter such a threat.

Scientists hope to glean clues about what gave rise to life on Earth from samples taken from Ryugu, which is thought to contain relatively large amounts of organic matter and water.

Photos of Ryugu - which means “Dragon Palace” in Japanese, a castle at the bottom of the ocean in an ancient Japanese tale - show an asteroid shaped a bit like a spinning top with a rough surface.

The Hayabusa2 probe was in good shape and now ready to start exploring the asteroid over the coming 18 months, JAXA said.

The next stage is to identify suitable sites to take samples from once the probe touches down on the asteroid, scientist Seiichiro Watanabe said.

Hayabusa2, about the size of a large fridge and equipped with solar panels, is the successor to JAXA’s first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa - Japanese for falcon.

That probe returned from a smaller, potato-shaped, asteroid in 2010 with dust samples despite various setbacks during its epic seven-year odyssey and was hailed as a scientific triumph.

The Hayabusa2 mission costs 30 billion yen ($274 million) and the probe was launched in December 2014. It will stay with the asteroid for 18 months before heading back to Earth with its samples.

Its total flight time was 1,302 days and it cruised 3.2 billion kilometres through space on a circuitous route to get to its target, Tsuda told reporters.

To collect its samples, it will release an “impactor” that will explode above the asteroid, shooting a two kilo (four pound) copper object into the surface to excavate a crater a few metres in diameter.

From this crater, the probe will collect “fresh” materials unexposed to millennia of wind and radiation, hoping for answers to some fundamental questions about life and the universe, including whether elements from space helped give rise to life on Earth. The probe will observe the surface with its camera and sensing equipment but will also drop tiny MINERVA-II rover robots as well as a French-German landing package named Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) for surface observation. </s> HAWTHRONE: A Japanese billionaire and online fashion tycoon, Yusaku Maezawa, will be the first man to fly on a monster SpaceX rocket around the Moon as early as 2023, and he plans to bring six to eight artists along.

Maezawa, 42, will be the first lunar traveller since the last US Apollo mission in 1972. He paid an unspecified amount of money for the privilege.

"Ever since I was a kid, I have loved the Moon," Maezawa said at SpaceX headquarters and rocket factory in Hawthorne, California, in the middle of metropolitan Los Angeles, late Monday.

"This is my lifelong dream."

Maezawa is chief executive of Japan's largest online fashion mall, and is the 18th richest person in Japan with a fortune of $3 billion, according to the business magazine Forbes.

Maezawa's other hobby is amassing valuable works of modern art and last year, he announced the acquisition of a Jean-Michel Basquiat masterpiece worth $110.5 million.

His love of art led him to decide to invite artists to come along for the trip, he said.

"I would like to invite six to eight artists from around the world to join me on this mission to the Moon," Maezawa said.

"They will be asked to create something after they return to Earth. These masterpieces will inspire the dreamer within all of us."

Until now, Americans are the only ones who have left Earth's orbit. A total of 24 NASA astronauts -- all white men -- voyaged to the Moon during the Apollo era of the 1960s and '70s. Twelve walked on the lunar surface.

The first space tourist was Dennis Tito, an American businessman who in 2001 paid some $20 million to fly on a Russian spaceship to the International Space Station.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk described Maezawa as the "bravest" and "best adventurer."

"He stepped forward," Musk added. "We are honored that he chose us."

Musk said he would not reveal the price Maezawa paid for the Moon trip, but said it would be "free for the artists."

"This is dangerous, to be clear. This is no walk in the park," Musk cautioned.

"When you are pushing the frontier, it is not a sure thing. There is a chance something could go wrong."

The ride will take place aboard a Big Falcon Rocket (BFR), which may not be ready for human flight for five years at least, Musk said.

The BFR was first announced in 2016, and was touted as the most powerful rocket in history, even more potent than the Saturn V Moon rocket that launched the Apollo missions five decades ago.

Last year, Musk said the BFR's admittedly "ambitious" goal was to make a test flight to Mars in 2022, followed by a crewed flight to the Red Planet in 2024.

This isn't the first time Musk has vowed to send tourists around the Moon. Last year, he said two paying tourists would circle the Moon in 2018, but those plans that did not materialize.

Musk showed off designs of the 118-meter (129 yards) long BFR, which will consist of a first stage with engines and fuel systems, and a second stage with the spacecraft where the passengers will ride.

Like SpaceX's existing rockets, the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, the first stage can detach from the rest of the rocket and return to Earth for an upright landing.

The spacecraft will continue on toward the Moon, powered by its own engines.

The BFR spacecraft's shape is reminiscent of the space shuttle, the bus-like US spaceships that carried astronauts to space 135 times from 1981 to 2011.

ALSO READ | Family of first man to step on Moon to auction his personal collection

Musk has said he wants the BFR's vessel to be able to hold around 100 people, and that the launch system could one day be used to colonize the Moon and Mars in order to make humans a "multi-planetary" species.

Whatever the details, SpaceX is touting an experience considerably more ambitious than space tourism plans under development by other private companies.

Virgin Galactic, founded by British tycoon Richard Branson, and billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's rocket company Blue Origin, are working on trips to the edge of space that could offer tourists a chance at weightlessness for 10 minutes or so.

Virgin's trip will cost about $250,000. Blue Origin's price has not been revealed.

Russian and Chinese companies are also working on space tourism plans.

Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla Motors, has drawn attention in recent months over his erratic behavior.

He has alleged that a cave diver in Thailand who helped rescue stranded boys was a "pedo," smoked what appeared to be marijuana on a comedian's podcast, spooked Tesla investors with comments about the future of the electric car maker, and admitted to exhaustion and use of the sleeping pill Ambien.

But so far this year, his space firm has also kept up a schedule outpaced only by the Chinese government, making 15 launches with its Falcon 9 rocket.

Next year, SpaceX -- which has received billions in NASA funding to ferry supplies to the ISS and build a crew vehicle -- hopes to become the first private company to send astronauts to the space station. </s> CANBERRA, Australia -- Australia announced on Monday it would create its own space agency to increase its share of the US$330 billion space economy.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the agency would be part of Australia's development of an innovation and science economy. But the government has provided few specifics.

"It's a small agency to co-ordinate and lead," Turnbull told reporters. "The space sector, of course, is one of enormous potential."

Acting Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Michaelia Cash said the agency's charter would be developed by the end of March.

"The global space industry is growing rapidly and it's crucial that Australia is part of this growth," Cash said in a statement.

"A national space agency will ensure we have a strategic long-term plan that supports the development and application of space technologies and grows our domestic space industry," she added.

The opposition Labor Party said such an agency was needed to increase Australia's share of a global space economy from less than 1 per cent of what the government estimates is worth $330 billion.

Labour said Australia and Iceland were the only countries in the 35-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that do not have a space agency.

Australia in 1967 became one of the first countries to launch a satellite and images of astronaut Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon were transmitted by NASA's Honeysuckle Creek tracking station in Australia.

But successive governments have baulked at establishing a space agency because of cost. The government has yet to announce how much it will invest in the new agency. </s> TOKYO (AP) — A Japanese aerospace startup funded by a former internet maverick successfully launched a small rocket into space Saturday, making it the first commercially developed Japanese rocket to reach orbit.

Interstellar Technology Inc. said the unmanned MOMO-3 rocket exceeded 100 kilometers (60 miles) in altitude before falling into the Pacific Ocean. It was launched from the company's test site in the town of Taiki on Japan's northern main island of Hokkaido and flew about 10 minutes.

"We proved that our rocket developed with a lot of commercially available parts is capable of reaching the space," Interstellar Technologies CEO Takahiro Inagawa told a news conference from Hokkaido.

The rocket, about 10 meters (32 feet) long and 50 centimeters (1.5 feet) in diameter, weighs about 1 ton. It is capable of carrying payloads as heavy as 20 kilograms (44 pounds) but currently lacks an ability to send them into orbit.

The company, founded in 2013 by entrepreneur Takafumi Horie, who was a former Livedoor Co. President, aims to develop low-cost commercial rockets to carry satellites into space. Horie expressed high expectations for his new business.

"I'm hoping that many manufacturers and satellite makers will come here to join us," he said.

The launch is part of a growing international trend in space business, where Japan has fallen behind global competition, led by U.S. startups such as Elon Musk's SpaceX.

Saturday's success came after two failures in 2017 and 2018.
Japan announces a fund worth US$940 million to encourage the foundation of new companies involved in space exploration.