Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

Hello from Japan! We are the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, but that's a long name, so most people call us JAXA. We are Japan's national space agency, which means it is our special job to explore the mysteries of space. We are a team of scientists, engineers, and many other experts who work together to look beyond our world. To do this, we design and build amazing machines like tall, powerful rockets that can launch things into the sky, clever satellites that orbit Earth to watch our weather or help us talk to people far away, and robotic probes that travel for years to visit distant planets and asteroids. Our goal is to learn as much as we can about our home planet and the vast universe.

We were officially formed on a special day: October 1st, 2003. Before we became JAXA, there were three separate space organizations in Japan. Each one was working hard on its own projects. But the leaders of Japan decided that if these three groups joined together, they could do even greater things. So, they combined to become one big, united team. This was a very important step because it allowed us to share our knowledge and tools. By working together, we could plan bigger and more challenging missions to explore farther into our solar system than ever before.

One of our most exciting missions was called Hayabusa2. We launched this robotic spacecraft on a very long journey through space to visit an asteroid. Asteroids are like giant space rocks left over from when the planets were first made. The Hayabusa2 probe didn't just fly by; it carefully collected tiny samples of dust and rock from the asteroid's surface and brought them all the way back home to Earth for scientists to study. These little pieces of space rock can tell us secrets about the beginning of our solar system! Getting missions like this off the ground is a huge job. We use very powerful rockets, like our H-IIA rocket, to give our spacecraft the massive push they need to leave Earth's gravity and start their incredible journeys.

Our work isn't only done by robots. We also train our own astronauts to live and work in space. Many of our astronauts travel to the International Space Station, or ISS, which is a huge home and laboratory that orbits high above our planet. It’s a place where astronauts from many countries cooperate. We helped build an important part of the ISS. It is a special laboratory module that we named Kibo. In the Japanese language, 'Kibo' means 'Hope.' Inside our Kibo lab, astronauts can conduct all sorts of important experiments in science and medicine that would be impossible to do on the ground. They learn how space affects the human body and discover new things that can help us all.

Our exploring continues every single day. We are always dreaming up new ideas and planning our next big adventures into the unknown. Right now, we are looking toward our nearest neighbor in space: the Moon. We are planning exciting new missions to explore the Moon's surface and learn more of its secrets. We believe that everything we discover, from the tiniest piece of an asteroid to a new fact about the Moon, is knowledge that belongs to everyone. It is our hope that what we learn in space will help protect our planet and make life better for all people on Earth.