The National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan (NAL) was established in July 1955. Originally known as the National Aeronautical Laboratory, it assumed its present name with the addition of the Aerospace Division in 1963. Since its establishment, it has pursued research on

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...

s, and other aeronautical transportation systems, as well as peripheral technology. NAL was involved in the development of the autonomous

ALFLEX ALFLEX (Automatic Landing Flight EXperiment) was an experimental unmanned aircraft created by National Space Development Agency of Japan, NASDA and National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan, NAL, the predecessors of JAXA, in 1996. It was built as a ...

aircraft and the cancelled

HOPE-X HOPE (H-II Orbiting Plane) was a Japanese experimental spaceplane project designed by a partnership between NASDA and NAL (both now part of JAXA), started in the 1980s. It was positioned for most of its lifetime as one of the main Japanese contri ...

spaceplane. NAL has also endeavored to develop and enhance large-scale test facilities and make them available for use by related organizations, with the aim of improving test technology in these facilities. The NAL began using computers to process data since the 1960s. It began working to develop supercomputer and numerical simulation technologies in order to execute full-scale numeric simulations. The NAL, in collaboration with

Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...

, developed the

Numerical Wind Tunnel Numerical Wind Tunnel (数値風洞) was an early implementation of the vector parallel architecture developed in a joint project between National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan and Fujitsu. It was the first supercomputer with a sustained performance ...

parallel supercomputer system, which went into operation in 1993. From 1993 to 1995, it was the most power supercomputer in the world, and was one of the top 3 in the world until 1997. It remained in use for 9 years after it began operations. On October 1, 2003, NAL, which had focused on research and development of next-generation

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

, merged with the

Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) is a Japanese national research organization of astrophysics using rockets, astronomical satellites and interplanetary probes which played a major role in Japan's space development. Since 2003, it is a division of Japan Aerospace E ...

(ISAS), and the

National Space Development Agency The , or NASDA, was a Japanese national space agency established on October 1, 1969 under the National Space Development Agency Law only for peaceful purposes. Based on the Space Development Program enacted by the Minister of Education, Culture, ...

(NASDA) of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

into one

Independent Administrative Institution An Incorporated Administrative Agency (独立行政法人, ''Dokuritsu gyōsei hōjin'' or ''Dokugyo'' in abbreviation) is a type of legal corporation formulated by the Government of Japan under the Act on General Rules for Incorporated Administrat ...

: the

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orb ...

(JAXA).

References

{{authority control 1955 establishments in Japan JAXA Aeronautics organizations Aviation research institutes Aerospace research institutes