Promoting the use of government and private satellites to understand water leakage and terrain changes, and deploying new technologies
May 8, 2025
The government is committed to using private satellites in both peacetime and times of disaster. The goal is to establish a "satellite constellation" that will link a large number of small satellites together to enable high-precision and low-cost measurements, and the government will cooperate with ministries and agencies to promote their use and develop domestic industries. In fiscal 2025, measures will be taken such as identifying the risk of deterioration of water supply and drainage systems, and developing methods to capture terrain changes and structural displacement using private satellites. The government plans to encourage government agencies to use private services.
Considering that private companies are accelerating their expansion into the space sector, the government has designated the three years starting from fiscal 2024 as the "private satellite utilization expansion period." The government will focus on procurement from space startups, aiming to foster the domestic industry through a healthy cycle of investment promotion. At the Space Strategy Headquarters meeting held in March, the efforts of each ministry and agency in fiscal 2025, the second year of the utilization expansion period, were summarized.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism is promoting the use of satellites to grasp the risks of aging water supply and drainage systems, and also plans to use them in the event of natural disasters to survey damage and grasp the status of landslides, dams and other large-scale structures. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will use satellite information for smart agriculture applications, while the Ministry of the Environment will use this information to understand the greenhouse gas situation.
After the road collapse accident in Yashio City, Saitama Prefecture, all attention has been focused on measures to improve the deterioration of water supply and drainage systems, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has made the development of satellite-based water leak detection technology one of the priority areas. Several private companies have provided this service, and the ministry has listed related technologies in the "DX Water Supply and Sewerage Technology Catalogue" published in March 2013. We will promote more on-site use in the future.
In the field of rivers, the technology of using SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellites to measure terrain and structures such as dams after disasters is increasingly developing, and it is also effective in capturing damage situations such as deformation and landslides. In a demonstration experiment, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism confirmed that the Daichi 2 satellite of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) can be used to monitor landslides and dam displacement. Starting from fiscal 2024, the company has promoted social deployment through the Cabinet Office's "Linking Research and Development Results with Social Implementation (BRIDGE)" program, and by establishing a satellite constellation, the company can conduct observations at lower costs and with higher accuracy.
Establishing a satellite constellation will also be effective in investigating damage caused by natural disasters. Daichi 2 and 4, operated by JAXA, have an observation frequency of about once every day or two, but this is expected to increase to about once every two hours thanks to the satellite constellation. It is hoped that this will help gather information more quickly after a disaster occurs.
