Balloon-Launched Rockets and Self-Healing Concrete: Fukushima Bringing Cutting-Edge Ideas to the World

Fostering Innovation

The Fukushima Innovation Coast concept established a new industrial foundation along Fukushima’s Hamadōri with the aim of facilitating the coastal region’s recovery from the devastation of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear disaster. The government project encompasses 15 municipalities and provides vital infrastructure for ambitious researchers and innovative startups in key sectors like robotics, aerospace, energy, and the environment to develop their ideas.

Facilities like the Fukushima Robot Test Field and the Minamisōma Incubation Center, are beginning to yield cutting-edge technologies, ranging from constructions drones to a new type of urban ropeway to energy efficient ways of launching rockets.

The Robot Test Field (RTF) in Minamisōma. The facility offers an environment for infrastructure inspection work and disaster drills along with proof-of-concept experiments for drones, robots, and self-driving vehicles. (© Hashino Yukinori)

A display of drones and robots developed by companies based at RTF in the facility’s entrance hall. (© Hashino Yukinori)

The Minamisōma Incubation Center (MIC) offers startups rental offices and workspaces as well as support in raising capital and operating businesses. (© Hashino Yukinori)

■ Zip Infrastructure: A New Urban Ropeway

One of the enterprises headquartered at MIC is Zip Infrastructure, a firm developing an automated ropeway that it says offers a more convenient, safe, and efficient way for people to get around. The company is now building a test course at RTF and is confident its product will alleviate traffic jams by offering an abundance of easily accessed stations in dense urban areas.

A prototype gondola of Zip Infrastructure’s Zippar Urban Ropeway at the company’s manufacturing facility at MIC. (© Hashino Yukinori)

Unlike a conventional ropeway with gondolas pulled along by cables, gondolas on the Zippar ropeway travel independently along two fixed parallel wires in a fashion similar to a suspended monorail. One way to picture the system is as a self-driving electric vehicle moving on wires, with a gondola suspended below.

This setup addresses a major disadvantage of ropeways, which can only move in a straight line. Zippar gondolas are not attached to wires, and by using steel rails along curves or at junctions, the carriages would be able to move in different directions, allowing them to change course and take different routes. What is more, the parallel wire system increases stability, helping to minimize swinging and making for a smoother ride.

A visual representation of Zippar in an urban environment. (© Zip Infrastructure, Biogon Pictures)

Low Cost and Efficient

The gondolas weigh just two and a half tons and can be supported by light steel pillars that can be erected along sidewalks or on medians, thus reducing the need for local authorities to acquire additional land, lowing the cost and time for installing the system. The company projects the ropeway could be put in place at a cost of ¥1.5 billion per kilometer, which is one-fifth less than installing a monorail and 20 to 30 times less than building a subway. What is more, a system can be erected and ready for service in around one year.

Although Zippar is still more expensive than establishing new bus lines, Zip Infrastructure stresses that the system has the advantage of being smoother and more punctual than buses as there is no need to contend with heavy traffic or frequent traffic signals. Zippar is also self-driving, making it immune to driver shortages affecting bus companies while helping keep operating costs down. The company says that running at a frequency of one arrival every 12 seconds, a fleet of 12-person gondolas could transport 3,600 passengers per hour at a maximum speed of 40 kph.

A Zippar gondola negotiates a curve at a test track in Hadano, Kanagawa Prefecture. (© Zip Infrastructure, Biogon Pictures)

With no need for a driver’s cab, the interiors of gondolas are open and spacious. (© Hashino Yukinori)

Zip Industries is working toward a commercial rollout of its ropeway system and is slated to start safety and other tests at its large test track currently under construction at RTF in June 2025. Mario Ian Carlos Ferido Rebonquin, the firm’s COO, explains that RTF offers the space and other support needed to bring their product to market. “We need a very large area to run demonstration tests, which RTF provides,” he says. “With our development base close by at MIC and the availability of generous subsidies from Minamisōma and Fukushima Prefecture, it has proved to be an ideal location.”

The company has already inked preliminary agreements with several municipalities in Japan to introduce Zippar and hopes to get its first line up and running as early as 2027. Zip Infrastructure has also garnered attention from overseas and has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bases Conversion and Development Authority of the Philippines to conduct studies with the aim of adopting the Zippar system.

Zip Infrastructure COO Rebonquin poses with a prototype gondola. (© Hashino Yukinori)

■ AstroX: Launching Rockets from Balloons

A basic principle of rocketry is to launch rockets in an easterly direction to take advantage of the Earth’s rotation to gain speed. This makes Hamadōri, which faces east toward the Pacific Ocean, an ideal location for space development. Making maximum use of the area’s potential, Oda Shōbu, CEO of AstroX Inc., aims to make his company a leader in the space field.

AstroX, headquartered at MIC, is developing a method for launching rockets from balloons lofted to around 20 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. The company, which dubbed its system “rockoon,” touts the energy efficiency of transporting rockets via balloon to the cloud-free stratosphere for launch.

Conventional rockets consume vast quantities of energy to propel themselves through the troposphere, the lowest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere where aerodynamic drag is the strongest. A rocket launched from higher up, on the other hand, would face less wind resistance and subsequently burn much less fuel. Launch vibrations would also be minimized, reducing the need for equipment to shield instruments and cargo from damage. The company says that these and other benefits would lower launch costs to below ¥500 million, half the cost of land-based launches.

A visual representation of the rockoon launching system. (© AstroX, Inc.)

Astro X CEO Oda Shōbu (left) and CTO Wada Yutaka, who is also a professor at Chiba Institute of Technology. (© AstroX, Inc.)

The rockoon method also provides greater flexibility for space programs by doing away with the need for huge tracts of empty land and enabling balloons to be launched from an array of locations, including from ships on the ocean. In the case of an ocean takeoff, the ship can sail with the wind behind it, allowing for smooth launches and fewer weather-related launch delays.

A model of a full-scale hybrid rocket on display at MIC. (© Hashino Yukinori)

AstroX faced numerous challenges in developing its rockoon system, not least of which was controlling the orientation of rockets once they detached high in the stratosphere. At RTF, the firm developed an attitude control assembly that it successfully tested on its full-scale hybrid rocket. Beginning this year, it has been partnering with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on research and development of a suspended attitude control assembly for use on balloon platforms, which they hope to commercialize beginning in 2029.

AstroX’s attitude control assembly. (© Hashino Yukinori)

AstroX successfully conducted a test launch of a hybrid rocket on November 9, 2024. (© AstroX, Inc.)

■ Aizawa Group: Basilisk Self-Healing Concrete

Using a new technology, Aizawa Concrete Corporation is pioneering the mass production of self-healing concrete. The firm’s product, called Basilisk, is already being adopted for infrastructure projects and other uses.

The company, headquartered in Tomakomai in Hokkaidō, began producing Basilisk in 2020. To encourage innovation in the concrete industry, Aizawa, sympathetic to the aims of the Fukushima Innovation Coast Framework, set up its Fukushima RDM Center in Namie in June 2023. In addition to manufacturing Basilisk and other products destined for infrastructure uses, the company also engages in new research and development, attracting human resources and fostering professional exchanges in the Hamadōri region.

The R&D building’s stunning façade was produced with a 3D concrete printer. RDM stands for “Research,” “Development,” and “Manufacturing.” (© Hashino Yukinori)

Durable “Green” Concrete

Deterioration of reinforced concrete often starts with small cracks less than 1 millimeter wide. Water and oxygen infiltrate these fissures, corroding the steel frame. Regular inspections and maintenance are essential, but even then concrete has a surprisingly short lifespan of just 50 to 60 years.

Roadside drains and other concrete infrastructure products at Aizawa’s manufacturing plant. (© Hashino Yukinori)

Basilisk is made by mixing a special type of bacteria and polylactide with ready mix concrete, which gives it the ability to self-heal when cracks appear. The process is fairly simple. Water and alkaline materials in the ready mix concrete break down the polylactide, producing calcium lactate that sustains the bacteria, which can remain dormant inside the strongly alkaline concrete for over 200 years.

When cracks develop and let water and oxygen in, the alkalinity of the concrete lowers, awakening the bacteria. The micro-organisms then multiply as they absorb the calcium lactate and oxygen, releasing calcium carbonate that fills the cracks in the concrete. The bacteria can repair a 1-mm-wide crack in around two weeks. When water and oxygen are shut out of the concrete, the alkalinity increases and the bacteria once again become dormant.

A catch basin made with Basilisk looks no different to one made with standard concrete. (© Hashino Yukinori)

Standard concrete with a crack (top right), and concrete repaired with Basilisk (top left). Below are the raw materials used for Basilisk. (© Hashino Yukinori)

Basilisk demands a premium price, costing nearly one and a half times standard concrete. But over the long run it proves to be the more economic option as maintenance expenses are lower. There is also less need to rebuild as the concrete can last for 100 years or more. This longevity makes it more sustainable as cement manufacturing generates large quantities of CO₂.

The 3D concrete printer at the R&D building can easily handle Basilisk. (© Hashino Yukinori)

Aizawa is currently developing self-heating concrete capable of melting snow and ice and a variety that can store energy. It is also working on a high-performance drone that can carry a 3D concrete printer, making it possible to construct concrete buildings without having to assemble formworks or scaffolding.

A display of Aizawa’s energy-storing concrete. (© Hashino Yukinori)

Prototypes of Aizawa’s high-performance drones. (© Hashino Yukinori)

Hamadōri is continuing to transform itself from a disaster area to an innovation center capable of bringing the world a range of cutting-edge technologies.

(Originally published in Japanese. Banner photo: RDM center of Aizawa Concrete Corporation in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture. © Hashino Yukinori of Nippon.com.)