Defense Agency seeks money for 'spy plane' research

The Defense Agency has a budgetary plan to spend 260-billion yen in the fiscal 2003 budget for research of an unmanned reconnaissance plane. The "spy plane," which will be Japan's first, is capable of patrolling and monitoring areas at very high altitudes for a long time.

The agency said that the reconnaissance plane with high quality camera and radar on board, if deployed, will enable the agency to collect information about military bases on the Korean Peninsula and in China.

Collected information will be automatically sent to SDF ground stations. The reconnaissance plane's performance is better than the Global Hawk of the U.S. forces, which was used in the war against Afghanistan.

Akahata on January 9 warned that the SDF with such a reconnaissance plane will have more military capabilities than it is allowed to maintain under the "exclusively defense-oriented policy."

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The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Space Activities Commission on January 8 announced that Japan's first two military reconnaissance satellites (IGS) will be launched from the Space Center in Tanegashima Island in Kagoshima Prefecture in March.

The IGS, which the Koizumi Cabinet decided to introduce in 1998 for the purpose of crisis control and security, is incompatible with the 1969 Diet Resolution which stated that Japan's space activities must be limited to peaceful purposes. (end)