July 23, 2010 Updated
'Let's discover the mystery of space!'
Sagamihara Campus special open-house on July 30 and 31
This annual summer open-house event will be held at the Sagamihara Campus for two days on July 30 (Fri.) and 31 (Sat.)Thanks to cooperation from Kyowa Elementary School of Sagamihara City and Sagamihara City Museum, we will introduce the latest information on "KAGUYA," "HAYABUSA" and "AKATSUKI," and hold other interesting events including a plastic rocket class, a "mini-mini" space school, and a space science seminar. The HAYABUSA capsule, which was delivered to Earth by the HAYABUSA will be exhibited at the Sagamihara City Museum.
On August 2 (Mon.) through 6 (Fri.,) the capsule will be exhibited at the newly opened exhibition hall at the Tsukuba Space Center (TKSC.) The entrance fee is free, and no reservation is required. As it is one of the rare opportunities to have a look at the capsule, please also visit the TKSC exhibition hall.
It is expected to be very hot on the open-house days, thus please be ready for the heat.
July 13, 2010 Updated
Full of events for summer vacation! HAYABUSA capsule may be in your area!
JAXA plans to have a lot of events this summer. The 17th (Sat.) is the grand opening day of the new Tsukuba Space Center exhibition hall. You can enjoy the reality and scale of virtual life-size test models of the HTV and satellites there.On the 30th (Fri.) and 31st (Sat.,) we will hold an annual summer vacation "open campus" event at the Sagamihara Campus. In August, the "JAXA i Kids Day" will wait for your visit.
This year's specialty is, of course, the HAYABUSA capsule. The capsule will be exhibited at the Sagamihara Campus, Tsukuba Space Center, and JAXA i, the information center of JAXA, in turn. Why don’t you come and take a look at the capsule that came back to Earth after a seven-year journey in space.
July 9, 2010 Updated
IKAROS: Acceleration by solar sail confirmed
The small solar power sail demonstrator "IKAROS," which successfully deployed its solar sail, was confirmed to accelerate by solar sail receiving solar pressure. This proved that the IKAROS has generated the biggest acceleration through photon during interplanetary flight in history.
July 6, 2010 Updated
AKATSUKI successfully controls orbit by the world's first ceramic thruster
On June 28 (Japan Standard Time,) the Venus Climate Orbiter "AKATSUKI" successfully jetted the thrust of 500 Newton by its orbital maneuvering engine (OME) at a distance of 14.6 million km from the Earth or 1.06 Astronomical Units (AU) from the sun. The OME was a newly developed ceramic thruster made of silicon nitride (Si3N4.) It is the first time in the world to successfully generate the thrust by the ceramic thruster in space.This engine is mainly used for retrofiring when the orbiter enters the Venus orbit, and the verification this time enabled us to confirm that the orbit control was carried out as scheduled.
The next orbit control is scheduled to be in early November, and the orbiter will be at the closest point to Venus and injected into the Venus orbit on December 7 (JST.)
July 5, 2010 Updated
Small particles found in the sample container of the HAYABUSA
Minute particles were confirmed in the sample container of the HAYABUSA, whose unpacking operation was started on June 24 (JST) at the Curation Center at the Sagamihara Campus.We are still unsure if those particles are something from the ITOKAWA or from the Earth, thus we will further examine them. (Image: opened sample container)