ANA, owed $1.65 million, had been a key partner for the Oita spaceport, entering a provisional deal with Virgin Orbit in 2021 for 20 flights of its LauncherOne rocket there. ANA said it was hopeful Virgin Orbit, which has said it is seeking a buyer, would be able to restructure and resume business.
"We were disappointed when we heard the announcement as we had hoped the situation would improve," iQPS said of the bankruptcy filing. "We pray that Virgin Orbit will resume their business for the development of the global space industry."Oita prefecture had estimated the spaceport, similar to Virgin Orbit's Cornwall, England facility, would produce economic benefits worth about 10.2 billion yen in the region over the five years from the initial launch.
Locals are still hopeful that a spaceport will eventually emerge. "It is possible that some other company will buy Virgin Orbit. Also, there are other companies and competitors besides Virgin Orbit that are considering horizontal launches, so Oita still has many options to reenter into a contract with them," said Kunio Ikari, an economics lecturer at Oita University.
While Japan has big ambitions for space – Tokyo has said it hopes to put one of its astronauts on the lunar surface in the latter half of the 2020s – it has also had some other recent setbacks.the month before, in a blow to its efforts to cut the cost of accessing space and compete against Elon Musk's SpaceX.