The space debris cleanup mission launched by Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has successfully tracked down one of its targets. During the Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration, Japan’s Astroscale partnered with JAXA to launch a satellite called ADRAS-J that will demonstrate the capabilities needed to remove space debris from orbit. Last Friday, the two entities … Read more
In the coming years, the Welsh Rugby Union has big plans to ramp up its exile program in a battle for the loyalty of dual-qualified players. The program will mainly focus on convincing players to return from England or the other home countries, while they will no doubt look across the southern hemisphere for a … Read more
A hyper-passionate fan base. A notoriously secretive industry. And social media algorithms that encourage people to follow their worst impulses for 15 minutes of fame. It’s a volatile cocktailand one that might explain why a notorious leaker who went by the name Midori, lied about being a Japanese woman, when in fact he was a … Read more
Five major brands were caught up in the government investigation that rocked Japanese industry Companies have admitted to cheating on certification tests, including those for crashes Japan, a country proud of a tradition of honor, has been rocked by the biggest scandal to hit its automotive sector in years. Five major automakers are at the … Read more
Several Japanese automakers have been caught cheating certification tests, and Toyota could be the worst offender. Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) said yesterday that its ongoing investigation into 85 domestic manufacturers, including several carmakers, had found that most acted in accordance with the law, but not Mazda, Yamaha, Honda or Suzuki. … Read more
The Japanese billionaire who commissioned SpaceX for a private mission around the moon on a Starship rocket has abruptly canceled the project, citing lingering uncertainties about when the launch vehicle will be ready to fly. “I signed the contract in 2018, thinking that DearMoon would launch at the end of 2023,” Yusaku Maezawa, the project’s … Read more
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa will not shoot to the moon with SpaceX’s Starship after all. Maezawa, who booked a private trip around the moon in 2018 on SpaceX’s Starship mega-rocket, has now scrapped the project – which he called dearMoon – after the rocket wasn’t ready to fly him and eight hand-picked artists in 2023. … Read more
Enlarge / Elon Musk speaks as Yusaku Maezawa, founder and president of Start Today Co., looks on at an event at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, in 2018. Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images On Friday evening, the DearMoon project – a plan to launch a Japanese billionaire and ten other “crew members” on a … Read more