Senior government officials vowed Friday to draw the blueprint for planned intelligence satellites by this summer, including the selection of contractors, government officials said.
At the first gathering of the Committee to Promote the Introduction of Intelligence Satellites, which was held at the Prime Minister's Official Residence, government officials agreed to select manufacturers, lay out the basic design of the satellites and decide where to place them, before making the budgetary request for the next fiscal year, officials said.
The committee is led by Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka and senior Foreign Ministry, Defense Agency and other government officials. It currently plans to launch two satellites above Tokyo, one over Hokkaido and another over Okinawa or Southern Kyushu, Yuuji Kawabe of the Cabinet Information Research Office said after the meeting.
Two of the satellites will be equipped with optical sensors and two others will be fitted with synthetic aperture radar.
Kawabe, chief secretary of the committee, also said the government will choose one manufacturer as prime contractor and let another firm or firms join the project. The possibility of importing some components from the United States will be considered after studying the blueprints to be mapped out by bidders, he added.
Committee leader Nonaka announced Thursday that Tokyo has decided to mostly use Japanese technology to develop the four satellites, which will be launched by 2002 for reconnaissance and other purposes. The three major Japanese firms that have produced weather, communications and other satellites are: Mitsubishi Electric Corp., NEC Corp. and Toshiba Corp.