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		</div><p>A Japanese startup that launched a rocket into space earlier this month plans to provide low-cost rocket services and compete with American rivals such as SpaceX, its founder has said.</p>
<p>Interstellar Technology founder Takafumi Horie said a low-cost rocket business in Japan is well-positioned to accommodate scientific and commercial needs in Asia.</p>
<p>While Japan’s government-led space programmes have demonstrated top-level technology, he said the country has fallen behind commercially due to high costs.</p>
<p><em>“In Japan, space programmes have been largely government-funded and they solely focused on developing rockets using the best and newest technologies, which means they are expensive,”</em> Mr Horie told reporters in Tokyo.</p>
<p><em>“As a private company, we can focus on the minimum level of technology needed to go to space, which is our advantage.</em></p>
<p><em>“We can transport more goods and people to space by slashing costs.”</em></p>
<p>Mr Horie said his company’s low-cost MOMO-3 rocket is the way to create a competitive space business in Japan.</p>
<p>During its May 4 flight, the unmanned MOMO-3 rocket reached 70 miles in altitude before falling into the Pacific Ocean.</p>
<p>The cost to launch the MOMO-3 was about one 10h of the launch cost of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the country’s space agency, according to Interstellar chief executive Takahiro Inagawa.</p>
<p>Mr Horie said his company plans to launch its first orbital rocket, the Zero, within the next few years and then it would technologically be on a par with competitors such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and New Zealand engineer Peter Beck’s Rocket Lab.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Weather is 80% favorable for tomorrow’s Falcon 9 launch of Starlink. Launch window opens at 10:30 p.m. EDT → <a href="https://t.co/gtC39uBC7z">https://t.co/gtC39uBC7z</a> <a href="https://t.co/RHveMmfOi9">pic.twitter.com/RHveMmfOi9</a></p>
<p>&mdash; SpaceX (@SpaceX) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1128523774888833024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 15, 2019</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>The two-stage Zero would be twice as long and much heavier than the compact MOMO-3, which is about 32 feet long and 1.5 feet in diameter and weighs about one ton.</p>
<p>It would be able to send satellites into orbit or carry payloads for scientific purposes.</p>
<p>Development of a low-cost commercial rocket is part of a growing international trend in the space business led by the US and aggressively followed by China and others.</p>
<p>At home, Mr Horie could face competition from space subsidiaries of major companies such as Canon and IHI, which have expertise from working with the government’s space agency.</p>
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