TokyoTomo Travel Guide

This week, we will introduce three main tour in The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)　Tsukuba Space Center.

General Guided Tour

1. After watching a video in the audio-visual room, participants follow the guide and view the acilities.

2. In the Exhibition room, you will see 1/20 scale model of rockets such as N-1 Rocket and the state-of-the-art H-II B Rocket, and even a full-scale satellite. It also shows the internal part of the Japanese experiment module KIBO by its model.

3. The guide will lead you to take a look at the engineering model of Japanese experiment module KIBO. Being almost equivalent as the real module, engineering model is used for function tests before they develop the flight model.

4. The tour will then come across Weightless Environment Test Building. Using the buoyant force of the water, the swimming pool with 10 meter in depth is the facility where astronauts is trained for their extravehicular activities in a weightless environment.

5. Next up is the Astronaut Training Facility where astronauts go through their basic training. Or, for tours held on Saturdays and Sundays, you will get to listen to the rocket launching sound you would hear if you are 3 km away from the launch pad.

Free admission. Duration is about 75 minutes. 5 session is held per day, but reservation is required in advance.

KIBO Control Room Tour
You can even get to see the real-life operation and control of KIBO. Tsukuba Space Center is in charge of monitoring the condition of the devices and experimental equipments loaded in KIBO and transmitting control commands to the module. Other than that, Tsukuba Space Center communicates with astronauts and other worldwide control centers involved in the ISS project, and handles anomaly if any.

In the room, the flight director takes the overall control with more than 50 operators working in three shifts in 24 hours. Please note that participants will need their ID as this room is a high security area. Free admission. Duration is about 75 minutes. The session is held only once a day from 3pm. Reservation required in advance.

Mock Astronaut Training Course (fee-based experience) Until 31 March 2010

Using the facilities within Tsukuba Space Center, you can actually experience five kinds of mock astronaut training.

1. Adaptive training of closed environment/Number of trainee: 4-8 persons
This is a mock training of joint operation, astronaut evaluation exam, and operation using white puzzle, conducted inside a chamber simulating the closed environment of ISS. It is quite a hard task to give direction to your peers in the closed environment, using monitor, camera and a microphone.

2. Mock training of extravehicular activity/Number of trainee: 4-8 persons
This is a mock training of extravehicular activity (EVA) using the real size mock-up of extravehicular platform. Participants are divided into two groups, one in control room and another outside, to work together as a team.

3. Mock training of emergency situation/Number of trainee: 3-8 persons
Using the facility the astronauts actually used, you will experience a mock training to handle emergency situation with your peers.

4. Mock experience of controlling a space rover/Number of trainee: 2-8 persons
Mock experience to drive an unmanned rover using a special control pad.

A Japanese astronaut, Soichi Noguchi, is up in space aiming to stay for a long period of 5 months in the Japanese Experiment Module KIBO. KIBO is a Japanese space station docked with International Space Station (ISS) that became familiar to TV viewers last year through the report by the astronaut, Koichi Wakata, on his activities on the experiment module.

This KIBO is controlled from the ground from Tsukuba Space Center of The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), located in Tsukuba Academic City in Ibaraki Prefecture.

JAXA is an independent administrative organization consistently involved in aerospace from basic research to development and utilization where Mr. Noguchi and Mr. Wakata were originally hired and trained as astronauts.

With Kanto region’s famous Mount Tsukuba in the North and Lake Kasumigaura, the second largest lake in Japan in the East, Tsukuba Academic City is an area with abundant nature where it is 60 km northeast from the center of Tokyo, an hour-ride by Tsukuba Express and 40 km northwest from Narita International Airport. There are over 300 companies and research institutions including universities in this area with more than 10 thousand researchers living in the community.

Located within the science city, Tsukuba Space Center is the field of front-line research and development like NASA in America, which also has an amusement facility for tourists. What makes this different from amusement part is that all the exhibits are real. Visitors are overwhelmed by the 50 m long domestically developed H-II launched vehicle exhibited in the area right in front of the main gate. The facility shows the rockets and space satellite that have been developed in the past, and gives you a real-life experience of the full-scale model of the Japanese experiment module KIBO in ISS where you can actually go and take a look inside. The exhibits are intriguing as most of them are totally new for us.

Various activities on space development are shown and information and books on KIBO and internet device are installed in the Space Library in the PR area, creating an atmosphere that makes you feel space more closer. The exhibition is in a visual-style attracting both children and adults.

(To be continued)

Source: Travel Vision

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