Places · Spaceport
Uchinoura Space Center
The rail-launched Epsilon flies from this hillside, and Hayabusa left from here for an asteroid and came back with a sample.
- Where
- Kagoshima, Japan
- Coordinates
- 31.25°N 131.08°E
- Since
- 1970
- On the map
- Show me
- More
- global.jaxa.jp
The sky from here
Measured at these coordinates the sky is zone 3: rural transition, which is Bortle 3–4 and a naked-eye limit of about magnitude 6.2–7.0. The Milky Way is clearly there but loses its detail near the horizon. Light domes are obvious in several directions.
Of the 110 Messier objects, 38 are an unaided-eye target from a sky this dark, 106 are comfortable in 10×50s and 106 in a 130mm reflector. You would have to get roughly 15 km south before the sky reaches Bortle 2.
Every night of the year reaches full astronomical darkness at this latitude; the Sun always gets its eighteen degrees below the horizon, which places much further from the equator cannot say.
The centre of the galaxy reaches 30° at its highest, which puts the brightest part of the Milky Way clear of the horizon murk without ever being overhead. Of the 110 Messier objects, 4 never set from here and every one of them rises at some point in the year.
Triangulum Galaxy, Ring Nebula and Hercules Cluster pass close to the zenith from this latitude — an object at the zenith is being seen through the least air it will ever be seen through, and the difference against the same object low in the south is not subtle.
Bode's Galaxy and Cigar Galaxy never set from this latitude, so they are available on any clear night of the year rather than for one season of it.
Read at 31.25°N 131.08°E. Darkness is estimated rather than measured; everything else follows from the latitude and holds along the whole parallel. How accurate this is.
Nearby
Questions
What part of the sky never rises at Uchinoura Space Center?
Everything south of declination −59°. From 31.3°N that is a cap 31° in radius centred on the south celestial pole, which is 7.3% of the whole celestial sphere. It is out of reach permanently rather than seasonally: no time of year and no instrument brings it above the horizon. The matching 7.3% around the north celestial pole is the same geometry inverted, and never sets.
How many hours of true darkness does Uchinoura Space Center get?
11 hours on the best night, around 21 December, falling to 6 hours 31 minutes around 21 June. Astronomical darkness is the Sun more than eighteen degrees below the horizon, which is a stricter thing than the Sun being down. Every night of the year gets there eventually, which is the quiet advantage of not being any further from the equator than this.
What orbits can be reached from Uchinoura Space Center?
Anything inclined at 31.3° or more, for free. A rocket launched due east from 31.3°N arrives in an orbit inclined at 31.3° — the shallowest the site can reach without spending propellant to turn the plane — and steeper orbits are simply a matter of launching on a different heading. The Space Station's 51.6°, and any polar or sun-synchronous orbit, are all available from here. Shallower is where it gets expensive. Every one of the 31.3° between here and the 0° of a geostationary belt is paid for in a plane change, which is why equatorial pads are worth building even in inconvenient places.
How far is Uchinoura Space Center from the other sites on this map?
Its closest neighbour on this map is Tanegashima Space Center, 95 km away to the south. That is also the nearest other spaceport, with the next one 1,960 km beyond it. Measured as the great circle between coordinates, which is the shortest path across the surface and rarely the one you could travel.