Members

Chiba Institute of Technology, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Space, Semiconductor and  Mechatronics Engineering, Professor

He  received the B.E. and M.E. degrees from the Department of Aeronautics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1985 and 1987, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA, in 1992.

From 1992 to 1995, he was a Research Associate with Kobe University, Kobe, Japan. From 1995 to 1996, he was a Teaching Associate with International Space University, France. Since 1996, he had been with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology (Kyutech), Japan, where he was an Assistant Professor in 1996 and Associate Professor in 1997. Since 2004, He has been a professor. In 2021, he joined PERC as a visiting researcher to assist the Advanced Engineer Development Program. Since 2024 he has been a professor at Chiba Institute of Technology (CIT) due to cross appointment between CIT and Kyutech.

His research interest includes lean satellites (as known as small/micro/nano/pico satellites) . He has authored or co-authored more than 200 papers in peer reviewed journals.  He contributed one chapter in a textbook, “CubeSat Handbook: From Mission Design to Operations”. He served as a project lead of a standardization project for ISO-19683, “Space systems — Design qualification and acceptance tests of small spacecraft and units” that was published in 2017. Since 2012, he has supervised more 10 satellite projects, launching 26 satellites into orbit, which is the largest number among academic institutions in the world. He organized various international conferences, including International Workshop on Lean Satellite. He is a member of IAA, IEEE, AIAA, JSAS, and IEEJ. He has been awarded Space Development and Utilization Award from Japanese government three times since 2013. In 2019, he was awarded Frank J. Malina Astronautics Medal from International Astronautical Federation that is the highest award given to an educator who has demonstrated excellence in taking the fullest advantage of the resources available to them to promote the study of astronautics and related space sciences.