Jon's Road Trip to Japan!
June 1997

Left LAX (Los Angeles) June 10

Landed at NRT (Narita Airport, Tokyo) June 11

Took bus to Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture

Joined the rest of my SeaWinds (JPL) cohorts at the Japanese National Aeronautics and Space Development Agency (NASDA) facility at Tsukuba.

Spent about two weeks participating in testing of the engineering-model version of our SeaWinds instrument.

Here's a picture of the Japanese ADEOS II spacecraft Engineering Model (EM). In the photo, the spacecraft is on its side and is attached to the giant turning fixture (the blue thing). The SeaWinds EM instrument is mounted on the spacecraft. The EM is used to validate the mechanical fit, the structural performance, and to some extent the electrical behavior of the equipment. The EM in this case is not built to flight specifications therefore it cost a lot less and is a lot less robust.

Here's some pictures of my trip... I was fortunate to stay at a nice little bed and breakfast located near work and remarkably central to nearly all of Japan.

Here's a picture of me outside the entrance to the hotel (background).

The view of Mt Fuji from my cottage at the hotel

Another view of Fuji from the hotel's beach area

A particularly nice shot of Fuji, taken from the restaurant atop the hotel

An outside shot of my cottage at the hotel and some of the staff

Another view of my cottage at the hotel

Here's a nice shot of the Ginza in Tokyo, just a block from my hotel

Back to Exploring!