TAIKI: Japan’s space industry opened potentially an udder-ly new chapter on Thursday with a start-up testing a prototype rocket engine that runs on fuel derived purely from a plentiful local source: cow dung.

The experiment saw the engine blast out a blue-and-orange flame 10-15 metres (30-50 feet) horizontally out of an open hangar door for around 10 seconds in the rural northern town of Taiki.

The liquid “biomethane” required was made entirely from gas derived from cow manure from two local dairy farms, according to Interstellar Technologies chief executive Takahiro Inagawa.

“We are doing this not just because it is good for the environment but because it can be produced locally, it is very cost-effective, and it is a fuel with high performance and high purity,” Inagawa said.

“I do not think it is an exaggeration to assume this will be replicated …all over the world,” he said. “We are the first private business to do this.”

Interstellar, which hopes to be able to put satellites in space using the fuel, teamed up with industrial gas producer firm Air Water. It works with local farmers who have equipment on their farms to process their cow dung into biogas which Air Water collects and turns into the rocket fuel.

Resource-poor Japan “must secure domestically produced, carbon-neutral energy now”, said Tomohiro Nishikawa, an engineer at Air Water.

“The raw material from this region’s cows has so much potential. Should something change in international affairs, it’s important that Japan has an energy source that it has already in hand,” he added.

Japan’s space agency JAXA launched in September its “Moon Sniper” mission but the sector has been plagued by problems in recent years with two failed missions — one public and one private.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2023