All I see when I look at the JAXA logo is the blue Lockheed Martin star that they've used since the mid 90s, if not earlier.
To be fair, Lockheed's logo is also iconic. So much so that it was used as the logo for Stark industries in Ironman.
Agreed; they're both really dated. There's potentially more to worth with when redesigning the meatball because it's not just a wordmark, but it has too much going on, and simplifying the elements doesn't give you anything meaningful.