On February 13, 2024, 30 participants that proposed experiments and 17 escorts from Australia, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand visited the Tsukuba Space Center (Participants from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan who were unable to come to the Tsukuba Space Center participated online).
The students and their escorts toured the exhibition hall where rockets, satellites, and a model of Kibo are on display. After the tour, the participants moved to the Astronaut Training Facility, where JAXA staff provided explanations about models of equipment used in experiments on the ISS, Closed Environment Simulation Facility, and space suits.
They were then moved to a special room overlooking Kibo’s Mission Control Room. In this special room, they listened to explanations and experiences from Astronaut Kanai. Students then had the rare experience of seeing Astronaut Furukawa conducting their experiments on Kibo as well as the ground operation control personnel supporting him in real time.
“The experiment was successful! Thank you to all who were involved in this wonderful opportunity. I am especially grateful to Astronaut Furukawa for his many trials whilst performing my experiment.” Shingo said.
