Japan in the next fiscal year will allocate about 80 billion yen ($ 770 million) to participate in the project to develop the moon proposed by the US, NHK TV channel reported.

Most of these funds will be spent on the development of a new unmanned cargo spacecraft to replace the current KOUNOTORI2, which has been used since 2009 to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). The new truck is expected to be able to participate in the supply of the Gateway lunar station.

The total budget of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for the 2021 fiscal year will be 280 billion yen ($ 2.6 billion), which will be a record for the entire existence of the agency, TASS reported.

In 2019, Japan announced its decision to join NASA's lunar program.