In this article, Toyota Motor Chairman Akio Toyoda announced that the company is considering venturing into the development and manufacturing of orbital rockets. The automaker is investing 7 billion yen ($44.4 million) in Interstellar Technologies Inc., a Japanese private spaceflight company focused on creating launch vehicles for satellites through its “Woven by Toyota” mobility company.
Toyoda emphasized the importance of multiple companies, not just one like Tesla, led by Elon Musk, who is involved in both automotive and space technologies. He stated that the future of mobility should not be restricted to Earth or limited to a single car company.
Interstellar Technologies, established in 2013, has conducted seven launches of its small suborbital MOMO rockets, achieving space travel for the first time in 2019. The company aims to develop larger rockets like ZERO and DECA to deploy satellites into orbit.
Toyota plans to apply its expertise in mass-producing vehicles to the production of rockets in collaboration with Interstellar Technologies. In the Japanese space launch sector, Toyota will compete with Mitsubishi, whose subsidiary Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has introduced the H3 series of rockets for JAXA, Japan’s space agency.
Additionally, Toyota revealed the completion of the initial phase of Woven City, a project introduced by Toyoda at CES five years ago. Woven City, situated on a 175-acre site near Mount Fuji in Japan, serves as a testing ground for emerging technologies like autonomous vehicles. The primary goal of Woven City is not profit-making but to serve as an experimental hub for future technologies.
