The 2024 Sagamihara Special Open Campus Day

On the weekend of November 2 ~ 3, the JAXA Sagamihara Campus held the annual Special Open Campus day. The event was held on-site on Saturday November 2, and online on Sunday November 3. Despite the rain during the on-site event, about 4,600 people made the journey to see us!

This year, the MMX exhibition venue was allocated space in the lobby of the first floor of the Research and Administration Building (also known more simply as “Building A”). When our exhibition planner heard this news, he turned pale and said, “A lot of people will definitely come!”. The lobby is one of the main sites on campus. We were allocated this prime location because a half-scale model of the MMX spacecraft that was developed by the GIGASTAR Corporation in collaboration with the MMX Project was coming to the Special Open Day, and a space with a high ceiling was needed!

The theme for this year’s MMX exhibition was “Introduction to All the Instruments Onboard the MMX Martian Moon eXploration Project”. Since the beginning of this year, there have been a steady rate of handover for the onboard instruments for the MMX Project, which are currently being integrated onto the spacecraft and joining the comprehensive spacecraft system tests. This was therefore the perfect opportunity to introduce each piece of equipment. In addition to the MMX half-scale model, photographs of the instruments were shown on posters and panels. MMX team members explained the purpose of each addition, with visitors asking a fast stream of enthusiastic questions, such as “What will happen to the MMX spacecraft after it has visited Phobos?” and “Why are there four engines (thrusters)?”

Mase Yasufumi from GIGASTAR gave a personal explanation of the half-scale model of MMX, which was a huge success. Of course, many people snapped commemorative photographs with their smartphones in front of the MMX model! The half-scale MMX remained was on display in the lobby from October 21 to November 11.   

In addition to the presentations, there were many other exciting events running. In collaboration with NHK, a 3D display that showed the MMX spacecraft was at the exhibit, and there was also an AR (artificial reality) version of the full-sized spacecraft that could be seen using a tablet. A demonstration of the position and attitude of MMX was given via a special simulator, and there was also a 3D printed model of MMX on display (you can download the files here if you would like to print your own model). Following on from last year’s popularity, there was a table of computers running the MMX game where you can try your hand at being a JAXA engineer, which was developed in collaboration with JAXA Space Education Center.

Everyone could explore the MMX mission in their favourite way.

At the online event on Sunday November 3, a video showing an interview with MMX and R&D member, Yoshikawa Kent, was streamed. The video was titled “Getting to know the people behind the MMX Project!”. Yoshikawa has been involved in many different aspects of the development for MMX, including the sampling devices, rover, and subsystems, and he spoke in detail about each of these. The video is currently available to watch in YouTube (discussion in Japanese):