The is a facility of the

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency The is the Japanese national Aeronautics, air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satell ...

(JAXA), located on the coast of the

Sea of Japan The Sea of Japan is the marginal sea between the Japanese archipelago, Sakhalin, the Korean Peninsula, and the mainland of the Russian Far East. The Japanese archipelago separates the sea from the Pacific Ocean. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it ...

in the city of Noshiro in

Akita Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "Provinces and prefectures" in ; "Tōhoku" in . Its population is estimated 915,691 as of 1 August 2023 and its geographi ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

History

The Noshiro Rocket Testing Center (NTC) was established in 1962 as one of the affiliated facilities of the Institute of Industrial Science of the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

, which became the

Institute of Space and Astronautical Science , or ISAS, is a Japanese national research organization of astrophysics using rockets, astronomical satellites and interplanetary probes which played a major role in Japan's space development. Established as part of the University of Tokyo ...

(ISAS) in 1964. The testing center was involved in the development and testing of

sounding rocket A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The rockets are often ...

s and the

solid-fuel rocket A solid-propellant rocket or solid rocket is a rocket with a rocket engine that uses Rocket propellant#Solid chemical propellants, solid propellants (fuel/oxidizer). The earliest rockets were solid-fuel rockets powered by gunpowder. The incepti ...

engines which were used on the Mu series of launch vehicles. From 1975, the Noshiro Testing Center was involved in the research, development and testing of liquid-fuel rocket engines. With the

M-V The M-V rocket, also called M-5 or Mu-5, was a Japanese solid-fuel rocket designed to launch scientific satellites. It was a member of the Mu family of rockets. The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) began developing the M-V i ...

launch vehicle program, the facilities were extensively upgraded with a large solid motor air combustion test building and an upper motor high altitude performance test facility completed by 1992. The static firing test for the M-V rocket engines took place at Noshiro. In addition, a successful static test firing of the

ATREX The ATREX engine (Air Turbo Ramjet Engine with eXpander cycle) developed in Japan is an experimental precooled jet engine that works as a turbojet at low speeds and a ramjet up to Mach number, mach 6.0. ATREX uses LH2, liquid hydrogen fuel in a ...

, an experimental precooled

jet engine A jet engine is a type of reaction engine, discharging a fast-moving jet (fluid), jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition may include Rocket engine, rocket, Pump-jet, water jet, and ...

that works as a

turbojet The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, and ...

at low speeds and a

ramjet A ramjet is a form of airbreathing jet engine that requires forward motion of the engine to provide air for combustion. Ramjets work most efficiently at supersonic speeds around and can operate up to . Ramjets can be particularly appropriat ...

up to

Mach The Mach number (M or Ma), often only Mach, (; ) is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a Boundary (thermodynamic), boundary to the local speed of sound. It is named after the Austrian physi ...

6.0 occurred in 1992. From 1998, the site has been active in the Reusable Vehicle Testing program to develop an air-breathing engine which uses less fuel than a rocket and can therefore transport a larger payload.

References

* Harvey, Brian. ''Emerging Space Powers: The New Space Programs of Asia, the Middle East and South America''. Springer (2011) * Spagnulo, Marcello. ''Space Program Management: Methods and Tools''. Springer (2102)

External links

JAXA official home pageJAXA brochure on Noshiro Test Center
{{Authority control 1962 establishments in Japan Space technology research institutes Buildings and structures in Akita Prefecture Noshiro, Akita Rocket launch sites in Japan JAXA facilities