Why is Honda suddenly launching reusable rockets?

In June of this year, Honda launched and landed a prototype of a 20-foot reusable rocket At its research facility in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island.

Although the company is primarily known as an innovative and innovative automobile manufacturer, it is also a transportation conglomerate, having developed and produced motorcycles, scooters, e-bikes, ATVs, boat engines, and even jet aircraft. Skunkworks’ R&D center was built The world’s first in-car navigation system, The first mass-produced automatic braking systemand The first production Level 3 autonomous driving system. However, aiming for the stars and potentially launching a competitor to Elon Musk’s SpaceX appears to extend beyond Honda’s very diverse capabilities.

However, according to Kazuo Sakurahara – the former director of Honda’s Formula 1 racing team who now runs the company’s aerospace development strategy – it is a logical move. “Honda products have already expanded across land, sea and sky,” says Sakurahara, from Honda’s R&D facility north of Tokyo, in his first conversation with the American press. “So, it’s no surprise that space is the next area of ​​opportunity.”

Honda’s stated goal for this initiative seems a bit foolish, if apparently altruistic: “to contribute more to people’s daily lives.” But the multinational company clearly sees missiles as key to its core business. “The rocket can be used to lift satellites to support mobility, energy and communications,” says Sakurahara, referring to large-scale communications satellites, which are becoming increasingly essential to the myriad of connected features built into advanced driver-assistance software, as well as a contributing factor to plans for autonomy, in all mobility products, from scooters to airplanes. “Although we focus more on transportation.”

Sam Abu Al-Samid, vice president of market research at the Telemetry Advisory Group, sees an immediate benefit to such a plan. “Honda could potentially use such satellites for its own vehicles globally,” he says. “Or it could sell this capability to other manufacturers.” “I can see not wanting to rely on a true monopoly like SpaceX, especially from someone as unstable as Elon Musk.”

Given the uncertainty the Trump administration has brought to long-standing global geopolitical alliances, and the threatening activities of Japan’s neighbors such as China and North Korea, Abu Al-Samid sees other motives behind Honda’s moves into space. “These technologies could provide defensive capabilities,” he says. “And they may have realized that they don’t want to be overly reliant on the United States to make that happen at this point.”

In fact, the rocket carrying the payload is just a capsule of Honda’s larger plans for our solar system. Having developed fuel cell technology for more than 30 years, though failing to attract it to terrestrial vehicles, Sakurahara has unveiled a new application: a rolling power system, intended to support sustainable activities in space, such as human colonies on the moon.

According to Sakurahara, the vertical solar array, created in partnership with Japanese company Astrobotic, will generate electricity during two consecutive weeks of lunar daylight, electrolyze water using a special system that can produce oxygen and supply hydrogen compressed to 10,000 psi without a compressor. Oxygen can be stored for humans to breathe, and it can be combined with stored hydrogen to power fuel cells during two consecutive weeks of lunar night. If you’re wondering where the water would come from, Sakurahara says, it’s ice deposits at the moon’s south pole.

And also years later Closing the ASIMO android software that has been running for over 30 yearsHonda is modifying this project with the goal of creating human-controlled avatar robots for extraterrestrial use. Powerful and/or dexterous, they can be used for tasks such as building units, refueling, and even fine motor repair skills. Controls could take place close to the Moon, or transmitted from Earth via Honda satellites. “Space is a harsh environment, so if this works, it will be an incredibly useful robot for people, freeing users from constraints of time, location and physical ability,” Sakurahara says.

Reapplying previous R&D projects, even those that seemed like dead ends, aligns strongly with Honda’s culture of creative reuse. “While this may seem like a diversion for Honda, they are actually relying on a lot of technology they developed for ground transportation anyway — aerodynamics, fuel cells, vehicle control systems, robotics,” says Abu Al-Samid. “So, it’s interesting how they can take some of that and put it into different endeavors that benefit them and their country.”

Is Honda’s dominance in the space just beginning? Maybe not. Sakurahara points out that the company has not yet developed or tested a full-sized prototype, let alone one capable of carrying the relevant payload, and is not sure it would commercialize the system if it did. But just six years later, Honda was able to build a prototype rocket, launch it, maneuver it, and land it without falling or exploding. This is a good start.

“If you look at how long it took SpaceX from when they started to be able to succeed Launching a rocket and bringing it back to Earth, that was like 15 years. “They come to Elon in many different ways,” says Abu Al-Samad. “After colonizing our closest celestial neighbor, will Honda try to beat Musk to Mars?” Sakurahara says. “The moon is 380,000 kilometers away from us. “Mars could be more than 380 kilometers across.” million Kilometers away. I think our goal now is to make sure we get to 500 kilometres.