Researches on reusable launch vehicle (RLV) in Japan have been conducted mainly by the three space agencies: the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), the National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan (NAL) and the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). HOPE‐X program by NASDA/NAL, spaceplane/scramjet related researches by NAL, and development studies of ATREX engine and small reusable vehicle testing (RVT) by ISAS are such major activities. After the consecutive launch failures of NASDA’s H‐II and ISAS’s M‐V rockets in 1999–2000, it was concluded that more intensive efforts should be concentrated on the reliability improvement of those major expendable vehicles and that RLV related researches should be promoted to establish fundamental technologies essential to future RLV. In past two years, NASDA succeeded in five consecutive launches of new H‐IIA, and ISAS successfully resumed the launch of M‐V. As for RLV researches, considerable progress has been achieved in the high speed flight demonstration (HSFD) tests of HOPE‐X program, scramjet tests of Mach 4 to 8 by NAL, and ATREX engine and small RVT tests by ISAS. The current three space agencies will be merged into one in October 2003 to establish a new organization named Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). It is expected that the above research activities will be also merged to promote a higher‐level research program on RLV. © 2004 American Institute of Physics