Minamitane, Tanegashima, Japan

Narration: Michael Starobin

Transcript:

I'm Michael Starobin from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. I'm in downtown Minamitane, Japan, and this is as busy as it gets. It's a small, working-class hamlet with all the rhythms of life you'd find in similar towns around the world. Kids hustling to school, people going to work, but Minamitane isn't an ordinary small town. It belongs to an elite club that directly abuts a spaceport. Let's check it out. Located at the southern tip of the island of Tanegashima, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, sends major payloads off the planet from this launchpad. And later this week, a big one is scheduled to blast off. This is GPM the Global Precipitation Measurement mission. It's a joint effort between NASA and JAXA, and it's already sitting on top a Mitsubishi H-IIA rocket, ready to go. The town clearly sees itself in its off-the-planet legacy, and with a visiting NASA team everywhere on the streets, it's impossible not to think something big is about to happen. We're here all week, all the way through launch.