Exclusive: Myanmar’s first satellite held by Japan on a space station after the coup

TOKYO (Reuters) – Myanmar’s first satellite is being held aboard the International Space Station following Myanmar’s coup, while the Japanese space agency and a Japanese university decide what to do with it, two officials said from a Japanese university.

The $ 15 million satellite was built by the Japanese University of Hokkaido as part of a joint project with the Myanmar University of Aerospace Engineering (MAEU), funded by the Myanmar government. It is the first in a series of two 50 kg microsatellites equipped with cameras designed to monitor agriculture and fishing.

Human rights activists and some officials in Japan fear the cameras could be used for military purposes by the junta that seized power in Myanmar on February 1.

This put the deployment on hold, as Hokkaido University is in talks with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the two Hokkaido University officials said.

“We will not get involved in anything that has to do with the military. The satellite was not designed for this, ”one of the officials, a project manager, told Reuters asking not to be identified.

“We are discussing what to do, but we don’t know when it will be deployed. If it is interrupted, we hope that the project can be restarted at some point. “

The manager did not specify when the satellite should be deployed, nor when a decision should be made by JAXA to go ahead or delay it.

The second official from Hokkaido University said the contract with MAEU did not specify that the satellite could not be used for military purposes. However, the spacecraft’s data would be collected by the Japanese university and would not be independently accessible by Burmese officials, the second official said.

Since the coup, university officials have not been able to contact MAEU rector Professor Kyi Thwin, the second official added.

JAXA officials could not be reached for comment. The MAEU did not respond to calls for comment, nor did a spokesman for the Burmese junta.

The satellite was launched by NASA on February 20 as a small part of a large and varied payload of supplies to the International Space Station 400 km (250 miles) above Earth. It has since been kept by JAXA in Japan’s Kibo experiment module. JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi is one of seven crew members currently aboard the space station.

Japan has close ties with Myanmar and is one of its largest aid donors. While condemning the violence, it has not taken as strong a stance against the coup as the United States and some other Western countries that have applied sanctions.

Although the spacecraft was not built to military specifications, Teppei Kasai, Asia program manager for Human Rights Watch, said it would be easy for Burmese military leaders to make the technology their own. military purposes.

“The Japanese universities involved should therefore suspend the project and urgently review it for potential human rights risks,” Kasai said.