[Satellite TODAY Insider 06-07-11] Mitsubishi Electric Corp. unveiled a plan to increase its annual satellite sales to $1.87 billion by March 2021 and double its annual satellite production capacity from four satellites to eight.
The Japanese company announced June 6 that it would invest about $37.4 million to upgrade its Kamakura Works production facility in Kamakura, Japan to meet its ambitious long-term goals. Mitsubishi officials said the facility would be complete by March 2013.
“Our new facility will help us reduce costs and shorten delivery time by integrating production processes, component assembly and environmental testing. The enlarged facility will have a total floor space of 7,700 square-meters when it is finished in 2013,” the company said in a statement. “The annual demand for new satellites in the global commercial communications market has risen to about 20, due to the rapid increase in traffic for data and telecommunications.”
Mitsubishi’s Kamakura Works is equipped with one of Japan’s largest thermal vacuum testing chambers, an acoustic test chamber and an antenna test range — producing 18 satellites, as well as electronic modules for its H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV) rocket for Japanese space commerce.
The company said its growth plan is driven by the Japanese Government’s 2009 Basic Plan for Space Policy, which stated that the country’s development and production of satellites should be utilization-driven rather than research and development-driven.
Mitsubishi Electric is currently under contract to build and deliver the Turksat-4A and -4B satellites using the company’s DS2000 satellite platform. The company’s most recent launch came in May, when its ST-2 communications satellite was successfully placed into geostationary orbit for a joint venture between SingTel and Chunghwa Telecom.
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