The is a space launch facility close to the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese town of Kimotsuki

Kimotsuki, Kagoshima

is a town located in Kimotsuki District, Kagoshima, Japan.The town was formed on July 1, 2005 from the merger of the towns of Kōyama and Uchinoura, both from Kimotsuki District....

, in Kagoshima Prefecture

Kagoshima Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. The capital is the city of Kagoshima.- Geography :Kagoshima Prefecture is located at the southwest tip of Kyushu and includes a chain of islands stretching further to the southwest for a few hundred kilometers...

. Before the establishment of the JAXA

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

The , or JAXA, is Japan's national aerospace agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on October 1, 2003, as an Independent Administrative Institution administered by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the...

 space agency in 2003, it was simply called the . All Japan's scientific satellites were launched from Uchinoura prior to the M-V launch vehicles being decommissioned. Additionally, the centre has antennas for communication with interplanetary space probes.

History

Established in February 1962, the Kagoshima Space Center (KSC) was constructed on the Pacific coast of Kagoshima Prefecture at Uchinoura

Uchinoura, Kagoshima

was a town located in Kimotsuki District, Kagoshima, Japan.On July 1, 2005 Uchinoura was merged with the town of Kōyama, also from Kimotsuki District, to form the new town of Kimotsuki....

 for the purpose of launching large rockets with probe payloads. Prior to establishment of KSC, test launches of the Pencil Rocket

Pencil Rocket

The Pencil Rocket was developed for the Japanese space agency. A prominent engineer on the project was Hideo Itokawa. The rocket was launched in 1955. The dimensions were 23cm in length by 1.8cm in diameter, weighing 200 grams.-Bibliography:...

, Baby Rocket and Kappa Rocket had been performed at the pioneering Akita rocket test facility (Michikawa) from the mid-1950s to the 1960s. However, progress in rocket development and larger launch vehicles required a site with more expansive down range than the narrow Sea of Japan

Sea of Japan

The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, between the Asian mainland, the Japanese archipelago and Sakhalin. It is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific...

. After consideration of various candidate sites, Uchinoura in Kagoshima Prefecture, fronting the Pacific Ocean, was selected. At 31° 15' north latitude and 131° 05' east longitude, and situated in hilly terrain, the site at first glance does not appear to be exceptional; however, landscape engineering resulted in a launch facility which maximizes the unique terrain features of the site.

Subsequent to the so-called Baby Rocket, launch vehicles developed by Japan have been given names from the Greek alphabet

Greek alphabet

The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...

, i.e. Alpha, Beta, Kappa, Omega, Lambda, and Mu. Although some Greek letters have been skipped due to project termination, the progression to Mu has been one of larger and more sophisticated rockets.

Launch test efforts at KSC with regard to the Kappa

Kappa (rocket)

Kappa is also a number of Japanese sounding rockets, which were built starting from 1956.- Kappa 6 :* pay load: 20 kg* Ceiling: 60 km* Takeoff weight: 270 kg* Diameter: 0,25 m* Length: 5,61 m- Kappa 8 :* pay load: 50 kg...

, Lambda and Lambda-4 rockets set the stage for small satellite missions. At the same time, the Mu program of large rockets was pursued. After four launch failures, an engineering test satellite was successfully put into orbit aboard a Lambda 4S-5 rocket. The satellite Ōsumi

Osumi (satellite)

Ōsumi is the name of the first Japanese artificial satellite put into orbit, named after the Ōsumi Province in the southern islands of Japan. It was launched on February 11, 1970 at 04:25 UTC with a Lambda 4S-5 rocket from Uchinoura Space Center by Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science,...

 (named after a peninsula in Kagoshima Prefecture) marked Japan's first successful satellite launch. Subsequent improvements in the Mu class rocket enabled scientific satellite launches at a rate of one per year. Development of the new generation M-V rocket resulted in successful launch of the scientific satellite MUSES-B (HALCA

HALCA

The HALCA , also known for its project name VSOP , or the code name MUSES-B for the second of the Mu Space Engineering Spacecraft series, is a Japanese 8 meter diameter radio telescope satellite which was used for Very Long Baseline Interferometry...

) in February 1997.

Launch Pads

• Kappa Pad - 31.2523°N 131.0785°E

• Lambda Pad - 31.2523°N 131.0785°E

• Mu Pad - 31.2510°N 131.0813°E
• M-V Pad - 31.2510°N 131.0820°E

• Temporary pad - 31.2527°N 131.0754°E

External links

• Uchinoura Space Center (JAXA)
• Kagoshima - Encyclopedia Astronautica
• Kagoshima Space Center - Stratospheric ballon launch bases and sites