ISS commander Koichi Wakata is now in space!

As I reported in the previous article (A Japanese house in space), a Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata went to space yesterday. He is in ISS now with his crews.

He said, "I am confident to make use of my expertise,
talent and experience to do a great job in space."

Look at his happy face!
Photo credit: JAXA

He will remain onboard the ISS for about six months until returning to the ground. In next March, Astronaut Wakata will be the first Japanese who is installed as the ISS Commander, and he conducts the six crews of Increment 39. He has to take care of all crews and ISS. But I think he will enjoy his responsible work in space. I wish I can go there and work with him.

Thank you so much!

A Japanese house in space

The Japanese Experiment Module (JEM), also known with the nickname Kibo (きぼう, Hope), is a Japanese science module for the International Space Station (ISS) developed by JAXA. It is the largest single ISS module. 

However, this is an experiment module so people can not sleep in Kibo. Japanese astronauts has to sleep in American Module.

A Japanese astronauts, Kouichi Wakata will go to Kibo in Nov 2013 as a expedition 38 crew member and he will be a first Japanese commander for expedition 39.

The commanders were mostly American or Russian. Now it's Japanese turn! I can't wait to see the launch for expedition 38.

Thank you!

Hayabusa

A Japanese unmanned spacecraft, Hayabusa (はやぶさ, literally "Peregrine Falcon") came back to the earth with some samples of an asteroid which is called "Itokawa" from a long space journey (6 billion km) on Jun 13 2010. Sample of return to land on a solid surface of an asteroid outside the Earth gravity is a world's first. The missions were like below. Despite the many difficulties, Hayabusa achieved all missions.

Operation of Ion Engines
Operation of Ion Engines for more than 1000 hours
Earth Gravity Assist with Ion Engines
Rendezvous with Itokawa with Autonomous Navigation 
Scientific Observation of Itokawa 
Touch-down and Sample Collection 
Capsule Recovered 
Sample obtained for Analysis 

A noteworthy point is the staff of Hayabusa. They did not give up. 
There was a meeting in 1985. It is called "Asteroid sample return small study group." It would not be an exaggeration to say that this Hayabusa plan began from there. The meeting was described by a film after Hayabusa accomplished a feat. The participants say, "we can not do that." with one mouth.

"Even if we get a sample, how do we get it back?" "We can't protect it like a space shuttle. It will just burn up." But a guy said, "Can we think about how we do it, not why we can't?" I think this phrase is just superb. We should not think about the negative things. We know we might not be able to do it now but we should talk how we can do it. It is a very positive phrase. I love this phrase. It is a really positive. And then, the people started to think and say like, "The shuttle uses ceramic shielding. Why don't we use carbon? That will stand higher temperatures.", "And we don't operate the probe from Earth. We make it operate itself.", "And not chemical propulsion. It won't carry enough. We will use electricity." 

The project leader of Hayabusa, Junichiro Kawaguchi announced that Japan will attempt sample return at Japan-US Joint Study Group planetary exploration in 1993. And then, they could achieve the Hayabusa mission because of the positive thinking. Japan is only able now to attempt such a difficult mission because of one man, Hideo Itokawa. He is known as the father of Japanese rocketry. His dream and his passion have brought Japanese space development this far. Dr. Itokawa said, "Failure is the key to progress in space research". But 'failure' is a word he would not use. He talked only about 'results'. "As long you have these results, you're making progress."

JAXA is trying have another mission now. It is called "Hayabusa 2". Hayabusa 2 is the follow-on mission to the Hayabusa mission. The goal for Hayabusa 2 is to build upon the legacy of the original mission, by strengthening the shown weak points. As of January 2011, the target is asteroid (162173) 1999 JU3 with a proposed launch in July 2014. This mission will feature more durable ion engines, upgraded guidance and navigation technology, and new antennas and attitude control systems. Operations at the asteroid will be similar to those of the previous Hayabusa, but with an explosive device to dig the asteroid surface for fresh sample material.  

I think Hayabusa 2 will be able to achieve the mission too because they have very strong positive thinking. I can not to wait to see the launch of Hayabusa 2.

Epsilon-1

On August 27, JAXA was trying to launch the first Epsilon Launch Vehicle (Epsilon-1) with SPRINT-A on board from the Uchinoura Space Center in Japan. But An automatic stop alarm was issued as an attitude abnormality was detected about 19 seconds prior to the liftoff time during the automatic countdown sequence. It was a kind of sad moment for us.

The Epsilon Rocket is the next-generation solid propellant rocket. It can reduce the cost by a third of the cost for former rocket and we can check and control the rocket anywhere in the world simply by using a laptop computer! And the Epsilon Rocket has a brain. It can think and find what is the problems and if it found a problem, the Epsilon Rocket stop the launch by itself. So it needs just a couple of people for the launch. It is unbelievable.

Epsilon-1 detected an abnormal situation. That is way it stop the launch. This is not a failure. It showed us the ability of the judgement. The rocket is very smart.

And then, on September 14th, JAXA launched the Epsilon-1 with SPRINT-A at 14:00 (JST) from the space center! Yes! The satellite, SPRINT-A is currently in good health. The nickname is "HIsaki".  You can see the naming story is here.

From now on, the launch of the rocket will become much much easier which means that we can be much closer to space! I really want to go to space!

This article is not about a product which you can buy from us but this is one of the fantastic stuff from Japan. I just wanted let you know about the Epsilon-1. Thank you, Epsilon-1.

Thank you so much.