Launch Site

H-IIA and H3 launch vehicles are launched from JAXA Tanegashima Space Center. Located on the southeastern tip of Tanegashima Island in southern Kagoshima, Tanegashima Space Center is known as the most beautiful launch site in the world, and it is Japan's largest rocket launch facility. The center can carry out all operations from final satellite checks to integration with the launch vehicle, rocket assembly, maintenance, inspection, launch, and post-launch tracking.
JAXA Tanegashima Space Center (TNSC)
JAXA Tanegashima Space Center (TNSC)
Courtesy of JAXA

Main Facilities

Currently, two launch pads are in operation, with H-IIA launch vehicles launching from Launch Pad 1 and H3 launch vehicles launching from Launch Pad 2.
At Tanegashima Space Center, customer satellites undergo pre-launch inspection, maintenance, propellant loading, and other preparations in a spacecraft test and assembly building and the Spacecraft and Fairing Assembly Building, followed by encapsulation in the satellite fairing.
In the Vehicle Assembly Building, we perform launch vehicle assembly, inspection, and maintenance, and the satellite fairing encapsulating the customer's satellite is mounted onto the launch vehicle. The Vehicle Assembly Building has a movable launcher that transports the launch vehicle to the launch pad. The customer may choose to oversee operations in person from a pressurization room installed on the movable launcher for facility installations for satellite GSE (Ground Support Equipment). Once loaded onto the launch vehicle, the satellite is monitored and controlled remotely via the customer's GSE in the pressurization room and the network within the complex. After transport to the launch pad, the satellite can be monitored by the same systems.