Rakuten satellite project to get up to $926m Japanese government grant
Japan has decided it does not want to depend on Elon Musk to keep its phones connected from space.
The government is set to provide up to ¥150 billion, roughly $926 million, in subsidies to a consortium led by Rakuten Group to build a homegrown low-Earth-orbit satellite communications network.
A project Tokyo frames explicitly as a matter of economic security rather than commercial convenience.
The money is sizeable and specific. Spread over three years, the subsidy will support the equipment, ground facilities, and control systems needed to launch and operate low-Earth-orbit satellites, the kind that circle close enough to deliver low-latency connectivity directly to ordinary devices.
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It is the sort of capital-intensive infrastructure that...
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