Toyota exploring orbital rocket development, makes startup investment

LAS VEGAS — Toyota Motor is exploring the development and production of orbital rockets, Chairman Akio Toyoda said Monday.

The automaker, through its “Woven by Toyota” mobility company, is investing 7 billion Japanese yen ($44.4 million) into Interstellar Technologies Inc., a Japanese private spaceflight company developing launch vehicles for satellites.

Toyoda, former CEO and scion of the automaker, said there shouldn’t only be “one car company” — referring to Tesla, whose CEO Elon Musk also leads SpaceX — working on the development of such technologies.

“We are exploring rockets too, because the future of mobility shouldn’t be limited to just earth or just one car company, for that matter,” Toyoda said during a press conference for the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Founded in 2013, Interstellar Technologies has performed seven launches of its small suborbital MOMO rockets, which reached space for the first time in 2019. The startup has yet to deploy a satellite in orbit, with plans to develop the larger ZERO and DECA line of rockets for delivering spacecraft.

Toyota said the company expects to leverage its experience with the mass production of vehicles for the production of rockets with Interstellar Technologies. 

In the Japanese launch market, Toyota is taking on Mitsubishi, whose subsidiary Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has developed and launched the H3 series of rockets for JAXA, the country’s space agency. Mitsubishi’s H3 rocket, which debuted several years behind schedule, was intended to be priced competitively with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets, which dominate the current global launch market.

Toyota on Monday also announced completion of the first phase of Woven City, including housing for residents and inventors whom the automaker is inviting to come to the location.

Woven by Toyota was announced five years ago by Toyoda at CES as a “prototype city of the future,” located on a 175-acre site at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan to test and develop new emerging technologies such as autonomous vehicles.

The chairman said the mission of Woven City isn’t necessarily to make money, but to be a test course and experimental proving ground for future technologies.