Hello! I am Sekine of Koizumi Laboratory Dr. 1 year.
Recently, do not you listen to the news of “Hayabusa 2” often? Hayabusa 2 is a Japanese satellite developed at ISAS (JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science). From the pictures of Ryuugu that is updated like every week, you can feel the “cutting edge” of the “exploring knowledge” of humanity in real time. As it is said that ISAS public release (http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/outreach/events/opencampus2018/) is also available at the end of July, those who are interested in!
Well, Hayabusa 2 has “ion engine” loaded. The ion engine is a type of “plasma thruster” that generates / discharges high temperature (several ten thousand ° C!) Gas called “plasma” and produces thrust (force to push the spacecraft). Although the thrust itself is small, the plasma thruster is attracting attention as an engine of a spacecraft with very good fuel consumption.
In my laboratory Koizumi laboratory, we are researching and developing engines (thrusters) of various artificial satellites, including ion engines, using “small” as a key word. For details, please check the Koizumi laboratory HP (http://www.al.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/koizumi/html/htdocs/)!
Meanwhile I went to the United States for about a month at Princeton University – Tokyo University Plasma Summer School. This summer school is an exchange research program between Princeton University and the University of Tokyo (although it was also introduced in other HP articles).
(Cited from: PPPL homepage https://www.facebook.com/PPPLab/?hc_ref=ARQ3kgmOqeK5vlJi2Sxg7EEhD8cLH-ZQrdefLHeZJxiJdCosno4ezjEkGnzpCoE_FhA&fref=nf)
I have been conducting research on plasma thruster called “Hall thruster” at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).
Weekly progress report meeting in English (hundreds of hours!) Was honestly hard work. However, the attitude of proactively engaging in science beyond the boundaries of age / nationality as well as exciting research content was very impressive.
I was able to feel the fact that Japanese studies so far have been highly evaluated. But I am not satisfied with this situation, I would like to pursue “searching for knowledge” greedily in the future.
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Thank you in advance for your kind understanding.
