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Japan's National Space Development Agency (NASDA) is to build a new space centre on Kiritimati, formerly Christmas Island, in the South Pacific, part of the Republic of Kiribati.

Programmes to be carried out there will include the development and launch of the unmanned experimental space vehicle HOPE-X, designed to ferry equipment to and from the experimental space station.

NASDA is negotiating with the Kiribati government for a 20-year lease on the southeastern part of the island. It plans to build a space port to carry out some activities transferred from its main space centre in Tanegashima, an island off Japan's south coast. These would be Japan's first space operations on foreign soil.

The Tanegashima Space Centre is shifting towards launching commercial satellites, leaving the planned space centre in Kiritimati to be at the heart of Japan's space development programmes.

Some scientists are concerned that Japan's participation in the international commercial satellite business, scheduled to begin in 2000, will affect NASDA's research activities.

Rocket System, a Japanese company that launches commercial satellelites, has signed a contract with Hughes Space and Communication International and Space Systems/Loral to launch more than 20 satellites from Tanegashima between 2000 and 2007 (see Nature 392, 321; 1998).

NASDA initially considered building the new centre on one of the islands in Japanese territory, but Kiritimati, near the equator, was geographically, climatically and politically more favourable. It was used for nuclear experiments by Britain and the United States between 1956 and 1963, so NASDA is likely to face a major task in clearing up the debris that has been left behind.

There were political problems associated with most of the locations in Japan, says a NASDA spokesman, as test-flying HOPE-X would have risked entering Chinese and Korean airspace.

HOPE-X, a joint project between NASDA and the National Aerospace Laboratory, is an experimental vehicle to establish the technologies needed for the recovery and supply of equipment from the international space station.

NASDA also hopes to carry out research and development of HOPE, a space shuttle for practical missions and next-generation launch vehicles, at the planned space centre, indicating that a significant part of NASDA's R&D might be transferrred to the South Pacific island.