section_path: Economy/Science and technology
section_name: Science and technology
paragraph_text: Science and technology
  
  Relative to gross domestic product, Japan's research and development budget is the sixth or seventh highest in the world, with 867,000 researchers sharing a 19-trillion-yen research and development budget as of 2017. Japan has the second highest number of researchers in science and technology per capita in the world with 14 per 1000 employees. The country has produced twenty-two Nobel laureates in either physics, chemistry or medicine, and three Fields medalists.
  
  Japan leads the world in robotics production and use, supplying 45% of the world's 2020 total; down from 55% in 2017.
  
  The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is Japan's national space agency; it conducts space, planetary, and aviation research, and leads development of rockets and satellites. It is a participant in the International Space Station: the Japanese Experiment Module (Kibō) was added to the station during Space Shuttle assembly flights in 2008. The space probe Akatsuki was launched in 2010 and achieved orbit around Venus in 2015. Japan's plans in space exploration include building a Moon base and landing astronauts by 2030. In 2007, it launched lunar explorer SELENE (Selenological and Engineering Explorer) from Tanegashima Space Center. The largest lunar mission since the Apollo program, its purpose was to gather data on the Moon's origin and evolution. The explorer entered a lunar orbit on October 4, 2007, and was deliberately crashed into the Moon on June 11, 2009.