Institute of Astronautical Science Space
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Institute of Space and Astronautical Science 3-1-1 Yoshinodai, Chuo-ku, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-5210, JAPAN http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/ Towards the Affluent Future Pioneered by Space Science Greetings As a core institute conducting space science researches Saku Tsuneta, Director General of ISAS Missions of ISAS The missions of ISAS aim to push ahead academic researches through the planning, development, ying experiments, operations and result production of characteristic and excellent space science missions consistently with the cooperation from universities, institutes in Japan and each foreign space institutes with the use of satellites, probes, sound rockets, big balloons and international space station. The biggest advantage of ISAS is that researchers of space engineering and space science cooperate with each other to research and develop, which means that engineers lead science missions with advanced technologies and new technologies that scientists expect can be developed efciently. ● To solutions to the fundamental problems of the modern space science and make them common intellectual properties of the society ● To create and execute new exploration programs such as landing on The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science( ISAS)is an celestial bodies like the moon, the Mars and its satellites and collecting essential part of Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency (JAXA) extraterrestrial materials and going back to the earth through the close and is as well a unique institute. ISAS becomes a hub for cooperation between space science and space engineering. universities or institutes to work together with all the researchers in Japan to realize the space science missions which are ● To continuously evolve the space transportation system to execute impossible to start for them individually. We will live up to the missions with lower cost and higher frequency. expectations both inside and outside JAXA, and through academic researches, we will contribute to the wide-ranging ● To sustainably realize advanced space science missions with tasks that JAXA and Japan are facing during space development. So far, basing on the close cooperation between researchers the cooperative structure that universities and institutes from both inside of space science and space engineering, our institute have and outside the country work together according to the Inter-University successively proposed and realized ambitious projects such as Research Institute System. “Hayabusa” and etc. Space science in the world is becoming more and more advanced and large-scale and diversied ● To cultivate talents to get involved in space development and researches international cooperation has become a trend. It is also on space science. important for ISAS to cooperate with main space institutes from other countries and start more international missions in the future. ● To contribute to the space development of Japan including space utilization. The 21st century should be the century when mankind can get a comprehensive description on the origin of the Universe and life for the rst time. As explorations go on, a new world is showing more and more aspects far beyond our imaginations, The ISAS is going to put scientific satellite and exploration programs which such as the presence of dark energy and dark matters, will become more and more large-scale and complicated in the future, exoplanets, as well as the various appearances of the planets, into practice, through the cooperation with the engineers and researchers satellites and asteroids in our solar system. ISAS, with astrophysics and solar system science going hand in hand with with excellent administrative abilities and experience from JAXA. the space engineering, which opens up new possibilities toward At the same time, by conducting demonstrations of advanced technologies the space, will continue to challenge this magnicent exploration of knowledge with the cooperation of universities promptly with the use of the Epsilon rockets, which is a way to execute and institutes from inside and outside our country. Our institute missions with lower cost and higher frequency, we will make more contributions will start new missions while steadily executing the missions in to the developmentnt o space exploration including the space utilization development. We are looking forward to your understanding, support and suggestions. prompted by JAXA and private companies. 2 3 Researches and Development Making the Impossible Possible “It is because of high risk that it is the frontier, and it is because of difficult projects that we can expect great achievements.” Researchers with such a will are conducting researches every day. The space engineering is a treasure house of new e technologies and it is expected to have great development in the future when successfully developed. c n ie c s e Space: The Frontier for Humankind spac The space is still a frontier for humankind. The space requires for system integration to combine and harmonize these technologies is technologies under environments completely different in gravity, also an important subject of our institute. pressure or temperature from what are natural on the ground. To perform activities outside the atmosphere, facing all the engineering The progress of space engineering has made direct contributions to problems under sever or unknown environments, we have to keep the expansion of human’s area of activity and knowledge. At the developing new technologies with high reliability. same time, besides transportation, the progresses of space technologies have been integrated with communication, positioning Space engineering consists of various specialized elds and we and earth observation technologies and are closely related to our are pursuing extreme performance and reliability in each of them. everyday life. With this background, our institute is conducting basic However, it is not enough for us to design and realize advanced researches in the related elds of space engineering and is hardware such as rockets, satellites and probes by only developing developing and demonstrating technologies that help to solve all the Technology Demonstration of Reusable Sounding Rockets advanced technologies in each eld. To achieve a purpose, we advanced problems not only in space engineering but also have to harmonize each technology transversally as a system. The engineering in general. The future when we can do round trips frequently between the earth and space with reusable rockets. Smart Lander for Investigating Moon Combustion test of the LOX/LH2 rocket engine To realize a high-reliable space transportation system like passenger planes with a low cost to do round trips frequently between the earth and space, it is important to reuse the body of a launch vehicle. Aiming at the future application, we are conducting researches and demonstration tests to use the reusable rockets as sounding rockets. We developed a rocket “SLIM” is a plan to demonstrate the landing technology for probes to land at where they engine reusable for over 100 times with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuels and succeeded in demonstration tests. want (an accuracy of 100 meters) with small probes so as to expand the possibilities of scientic explorations. Epsilon Launch Vehicle Sounding Rockets Balloons Small rockets developed for various scientic experiments with about-10-minute ballistic ights. They are being widely used by most researchers for conduct space demonstrations in advance on innovative key technologies and technical verication of new ying bodies. They are also playing an important role for direct observations of the vertical structure of the upper atmosphere between 100-300km high which is difcult for articial satellites as well as investigation of the initial behaviors of material Solar Power Sail Small Solar Power Sail Demonstrator "IKAROS" Balloons have relaxed limitations on the size and weight of onboard devices, more (Artists rendering of IKAROS ) The Launch of Epsilon Launch Vehicle generated under microgravity chance to y and is possible to recycle the onboard devices. To make full use of environment. these features, we are conducting state-of-the-art ambitious or germinating With the combination of solar sail technology, which makes it possible to y in the space The Epsilon Launch Vehicle was born with the concept to make it easier to launch experiments. Furthermore, we are developing the world’ s most advanced next with solar radiation pressure with sails deployed in the space, and the technology to rockets and to lower the threshold towards the space. generation balloons for ying longer and higher. operate the high-efcient ion engines with the power generated by thin lm solar cells, Sounding Rockets S-520 we are creating new possibilities for solar system explorations in the future. 4 5 Technologies Supporting the Missions e c n ie The space science approaches the formation of the Universe, and even the origin of life. We make the challenging c s e activities possible, and tackle the development of technologies that create new possibilities. spac Technologies Supporting Deep Space Exploration Advanced Observation Technologies Atmospheric Entry System Autonomous Image Navigation and Guidance Control Stirling Cooler and Joule-Thomson Cooler Looking toward the era when we do round trips To get closer to or land on the celestial bodies away from the It is necessary to cool the detectors close to between space and the earth actively or when we earth, autonomous functions are