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What is JEDI Center?

What is JEDI Center?

JEDI Brochure(PDF)

Greeting from the Center's Director

Director of JAXA's Engineering Digital Innovation Center. Eiji Shima

Director of JAXA's Engineering Digital Innovation Center
Eiji Shima

JAXA’s Engineering Digital Innovation (JEDI)Center was established on October 1, 2005. Major role of the Center is to improve JAXA’senterprise efficiency and reliability of its spacecraft designs and productions by means of digital engineering that comprises leading-edge information technology and computational engineering as typically referred to numerical simulations. JAXA was established on October 1, 2003, by merging three independent institutions with the hope of performing their activities more efficiently in the aerospace field as one organization. Digital engineering has cross-sectional nature across the whole directorates of JAXA, and therefore,JEDI Center holds an advantage in promoting the merging effect. The center will contribute not only to JAXA organization itself but also to world-wide space development by consolidating its synergy effect of high-quality technological and human resources inherited from old institutions.

Fortunately a favorable evaluation was given to JEDI Center for its activities in the first period of JAXA mid-term plan, which ended in March 2008. Many of the JEDI activities, however, are still in progress. During the second period, it is expanding its activities in more concrete way based on the outcomes and experiences of the past several years. The project of introducing IT technology into the development process for particular satellites in the first-stage is becoming a formal standard for all JAXA’s satellite development processes and will be generalized. Furthermore, as a new technical prospect, an IT-based satellite operation enhancement system is being developed. Experience of applying IT technology for satellite development is being transferred to similar activity for rocket engines development process under the collaboration with Space Transportation Mission Directorate (STMD), which will result in reliability enhancement of future rocket engines. Supercomputer facilities in the three former institutions were replaced by a single supercomputer system, and started general operations in April 2009. This new supercomputer system directly supports highly sophisticated numerical simulations available at only JAXA. Such simulations are introducing digital innovation by reforming the entire JAXA activities as well as directly supporting success of wide variety of JAXA projects. Possible candidates for such innovation are (1) Research of establishing model-based design, and (2) Software development for the next-generation platform of numerical simulations. Several international and national joint-research programs have already started. Especially, under the collaboration of JAXA and University of Tokyo (Social Cooperation Program) a Rocket Engine Modeling Laboratory (REML) opened with the purpose of enhancing academic support for numerical simulations of rocket-engine systems in January 2008. International collaboration between JAXA and Iowa State University in the United States has started in 2007 and a few more collaboration with the foreign organizations is under discussion. Such collaboration will help JEDI to keep its best activities under the restricted budget and personnel.

JEDI center will not stay in a narrow discipline but open its eye to wide range of disciplines, and continue a new challenge. As a center director, I hope for the JEDI center to be given a high appreciation and good reputation from the community of aerospace engineers as a professional center with its effort in the field of IT technology and computational mechanics. Be the "FORCE" with us.

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