超小型衛星などの宇宙機による地球観測や宇宙空間探査が容易になりつつある昨今、宇宙機関のみならず大学・民間での人工衛星・ロケットの製作や国際協同が活発化している。理学的研究においては、宇宙への展開自体は本来の目的ではなく、より良い科学に向けた一手段である一方、技術革新と教育向上においては魅力的な動機である。宇宙計画の成功には、目的に応じた個々の搭載機器の研究開発が必須となり、将来に向けた基盤技術の開拓が計画全体の原動力ともなり得る。計画全体の推進には、搭載機器の提案・選定・製作の段階での綿密な検討も不可欠であり、必然的に何らかの宇宙計画では、その大小を問わず、あらゆる過程・側面での多面的な調整と多角的な展開が求められる。このセッションでは、搭載機器の開発から計画全体の総括までに及ぶこれらの包括的な研究活動に焦点を絞り、科学的意義に加え、各々の戦略・手法における独自性・革新性、及び関連機器の先端的研究開発の状況と最新の成果に関する講演を集約し、実りある宇宙科学・探査計画・天文観測を実現できる未来により早く達するため、関連する研究者に活発な意見交換・情報共有・協同創出の機会を提供する。

Not only national space agencies but some universities and even companies in the world are now leading a number of space science and exploration missions and also energetically initiating new research activities for satellite and rocket developments and international collaborations in these days because the Earth observations from the space and the space explorations could be achieved much easier than a few decades ago (e.g. ultra-small satellite). The deployment to the space, which itself is not purely a scientific purpose but one of methods for better sciences, is vigorously motivating the technical innovation and the educational development. For successful space missions, it is also crucial to research and develop aim-oriented on-board instruments, and the fundamental research and development of observational instrumentation with future perspectives could totally lead space missions in some case. Detailed investigation and evaluation on various on-board instruments are needed during their proposals, selections, and fabrications in order to promote the missions, and inevitably we have to make multi-sided arrangements and evolution at every process and aspect of any type of space missions, independently of their mission sizes. In this session, we focus on these comprehensive research activities in the space and astronomy missions, including the mission integrations and the individual instrumental developments, and we also call many presentations showing the uniqueness and renovation regarding the mission strategy and methodology, and the status and latest results in the related state-of-the-art researches and developments, which would provide all of researchers and developers with invaluable opportunities for active discussion, information sharing, and collaboration toward the realization of more missions for more fruitful space sciences and explorations in nearer future.