Institute of Space and Astronautical Science

The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science ( ISAS ) is a Japanese National Institute for Space Research, which is the Japanese space agency JAXA since 2003 part. The headquarters is in Sagamihara Campus, 40 km west of Tokyo. Other facilities in Japan, which are also associated with this Institute, are the Uchinoura Space Center (USC ), the Noshiro Testing Center (NTC ), the Sanriku Balloon Center (SBC ) and the Usuda Deep Space Center ( UDSC ).

ISAS developed from experiments with sounding rockets in the 1950s and was founded in April 1964 as an institute of the University of Tokyo. Since April 1981 it was operated as a joint research organization of Japanese universities. On 1 October 2003 it went up in the new space agency JAXA along with NASDA and NAL. ISAS operated the rocket launch site Kagoshima Space Center.

Strength of ISAS is the close link technological development in the field of rocket and satellite technology with a scientific application in astronomy and the exploration of the solar system. ISAS developed scientific satellites and space probes such as ASCA.