The 11th Japan International Aerospace Exhibition (Japan Aerospace 2004) was held at the Pacifico Yokohama by the Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies from October 6 to 10, 2004.
IHI Aerospace Co., LTD. exhibited the Pencil rocket, M-V rocket (1/15 scale model), H-ⅡA rocket (1/20 scale model), International Space Station (1/100 scale model), etc. During the exhibition, over 100 thousand people visited the Pacifico Yokohama, and we had a lot of visitors in our booth.
They were especially interested in the engineering model of Life-Science Glove-box for the NASA experiment and the mock-up of Micro Nano Experimental Robot Vehicle for Asteroid exploration carried on the JAXA Muses-C (Hayabusa) that had been launched on May 2003 by M-V Rocket.

On August 9 at 5:15 pm Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the 34th S-310 rocket (with an overall length 7.4m, total weight approx. 750 kg) at JAXA' s Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima.
The object of this launch is to realize of a solar sail, which is a spacecraft without motor engine and is pushed along by light particles from the Sun, reflecting off its giant sails.
The S-310 rocket carried two kinds of deploying schemes of films, a clover type deployment was started at 122 km altitude, and a fan type deployment was started at 169 km altitude. Both experiments of two types deployment were successful, and the rocket splashed on the sea at about 6 minutes 40 seconds after liftoff.
Since the solar sail carries no fuel and keeps accelerating over almost unlimited distance, when realized, it is expected that application of the technologies will contribute to realization of various extended space missions.
IHI Aerospace Co., Ltd. is responsible for developing and manufacturing the S-310 rocket.

On January 18 at 0:30 am Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the 33th S-310 rocket at JAXA’ s Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima.
The S-310 is a single-stage sounding rocket, 310mm in diameter and can reach an altitude of 200 km.
The object of this launch is to analyze the airglow wave structures, and succeeded in obtaining the data effectively during it’s falling on the Pacific Ocean for seven minutes, utilizing a camera positioned on the ground and observation equipments installed in the rocket.
IHI Aerospace Co., Ltd. is responsible for developing and manufacturing the S-310 rocket.