An employee of a satellite maker illegally accessed a National Space Development Agency computer system and spied on classified data about a rival firm's technology, NASDA officials said Thursday.

The NEC Toshiba Space Systems Ltd. employee cracked a password and accessed the data of Mitsubishi Electric Corp. on Dec. 12, the officials said.

The Yokohama-based NEC-Toshiba joint venture competed with Mitsubishi Electric for a contract to develop a high-speed Internet satellite scheduled for launch in 2005. Both won the order, with each working on separate parts of the project.

The companies use the NASDA information system to access their own data but are barred from accessing each other's data, the officials said.

Mitsubishi Electric's classified data that was illegally accessed included documents on technological assessment of satellite parts, they said.

NASDA has suspended NEC Toshiba Space Systems from tendering bids for one month and plans to take countermeasures, including shutting down the computer system, the officials said.

The employee, who was not identified, apparently sent e-mail to several people informing them of his success in accessing the data, and boasting of how he managed to break into the system.

NEC Toshiba Space Systems and Mitsubishi Electric were given separate passwords to access the NASDA system, but the NEC Toshiba Space employee found out that he could access Mitsubishi's data by merely changing a part of the password assigned to his company, according to NASDA officials.

The case came to light because a NASDA employee was on the list of people to whom the e-mail was sent, the officials said.

NASDA officials said the agency should have been more careful in managing passwords.

Three other NEC Toshiba Space Systems employees have since illegally accessed data, but NASDA said the access caused no real damage since the case came to light one day after the first employee broke into the system, the officials said.

NASDA said it does not plan to file a criminal complaint.

NEC Toshiba Space Systems is a joint venture set up in April by electronics giants NEC Corp. and Toshiba Corp.