TOKYO — Japan’s Cabinet is asking the nation’s finance ministry for a 19.4 percent increase, to 327 billion yen ($3.05 billion), in space spending for the upcoming fiscal year to support projects that include a laser-optical data-relay satellite and a civilian Earth-observing satellite carrying a missile warning sensor as a hosted payload.

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A graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where he won the Horgan Prize for Excellence in Science Writing, Paul Kallender-Umezu is co-author of “In Defense of Japan: From the Market to the Military in Space Policy” (Stanford University...