This is a day in the life
of a Japanese Space Engineer. This is Takashi,
32 years old with a wife and son living in Tokyo,
and he's just waking up for work. This is Takashi's wife, Haruka. She works full-time as an IT consultant,
and since both of them work full-time, Which is becoming more
common in Japan these days, They help each other out
with the morning chores. Like she prepares breakfast,
while Takashi takes care of their son. So the first thing Takashi
does every morning, is to pack his son's bag for Hoikuen. Which is Japanese for nursery school. His son is four years old and
attends nursery school on the weekdays, while Takashi and Haruka work. Oh and that's his son, Kei-kun!
His name is Kei, but the word "Kun" is usually attached
to the end of a Japanese boy's name. Oh, wow, it seems like
he has a lot of energy this morning. In Japan there's an old custom,
called Teishu Kanpaku, Which basically means
a husband madly rules the household, but I guess Takashi's
family is not the case. Gender equality is becoming
more acknowledged in Japan, as younger families tend
to help each other out. Like them! Oh, he's being the
Otōbansan. At his nursery, only
one person is selected each day, to be responsible for making sure
everyone gets food before eating. He loves the job, so when
at home he wants to do it all the time. Oh, no, I think he's freestyling it now. Even on a busy weekday morning, they
make time to have breakfast together, as the rest of the day
is spent away from eachother. You always eat bread for breakfast? While Takashi's wife is helping
Kei-kun finish breakfast, Takashi tidies up the room, and puts
away the Japanese futon into the Oshiire A traditional Japanese closet
specifically designed for futon. Believe it or not,
about 47% of the population of Japan sleep on a futon, meaning half
the country sleep on the floor. Countries like Japan with limited
space in the house, are able to maximize the floor space, by
putting away the Japanese-style mattress in the morning, in
order to repurpose the space for the day. Would you be able to sleep
on the floor in your country? Now it's time to help Kei-kun
to change into his daywear. Oh nice, he has his own style. I like it! Before Takashi goes to work,
it's his job to take Kei-kun to Hoikuen. Buckle up, Kei-kun! So Takashi rides an electric
Japanese mamachari style bike to take Kei-kun to nursery school. It's super common for
most families with children in Tokyo. Since many don't own cars,
but still need a way to transport their kids back and forth,
when trains and buses are not an option. Now he's ready to go to work,
taking care of his son before work, is sometimes a hustle,
but he enjoys every minute of it. Takashi commutes to work by train, just
like most everyone else in Tokyo. For him it's one hour, door-to-door,
with one train transfer in between, which is pretty average in Tokyo. He uses the commute time,
to check his urgent work emails, and review reports from last night. Takashi, like many other Japanese,
use the commute time to be efficient. Like reading up on news, or studying
a new language on their smartphone. But of course, there are many others that
use the time to catch up on their sleep. I'm back with another day in the life. It is super hot outside,
but we're doing this anyway. Takashi's train should be arriving
right now. There it is. Good morning. What time did you go to sleep last night? It's super hot today, isn't it? Oh wow, you can see Tokyo Sky Tree
from here, that's pretty dope. It's almost 10 AM, are you late? So Takashi works as a Space Engineer
at Astroscale, a growing venture company, with about 80 employees
in the Tokyo Headquarters. They are one of the only companies,
who develop satellite technologies to clean up debris in space, even partnering with Jaxa, Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency, for missions. Takashi normally works
at his own desk with monitors But because of Covid-19, he prefers to sit
at the lounge when he comes to the office. In fact, these days 70 to 80 percent
of the Tokyo office, are working from home on any given day. Takashi also works from home most days,
but there are times like today, where he needs to work on hardware, which requires him to
be physically in the office. So, what are you working on right now? Now he's attending a
weekly internal meeting. Every member updates,
what's going on with each project. Currently they're working on a project,
called Elsa D, short for end-of-life
services by astroscale demonstration. A spacecraft designed to
remove failed satellites from orbit. Kind of like
a car removal service in space, and it's scheduled to launch
later this year. Now they're heading to the cleanroom,
to work on the Elsa D satellites. Before entering the cleanroom,
Takashi needs to suit up to minimize the chances of introducing
outside debris and dust, which could impact the operation
of the satellites, and even alter their testing results. And as a final precaution,
he gets into the air shower, to remove any remaining debris,
or dust on the suits. So they just went inside of the cleanroom,
unfortunately, I can't go inside myself, but here's some footage of what
it would look like inside. Oh, they're back! So what did you guys do in there? So, what's this? Apparently, they also connect
the vacuum pump to it, to simulate the pressure in space. Have you ever put food in there? Finally, he gets a break. What's the most enjoyable
part of working here? So Takashi has another video conference. This is probably more than what he would
have normally, but since staff are working remotely, it's
the easiest way to communicate these days, especially when reviewing
project documentation together. So these days,
a lot of meetings are done remotely, which they're doing right now,
but it might take some time. So while they're doing that,
let's explore the space. Pun intended. This is a scaled model
of the Elsa D satellites. The blue wings are the solar panels,
which power the satellite itself, and the gold sheets, around
the center body, works as heat insulation. The bottom magnet picks up
the space debris, and once picked up, it shuttles it to a
lower altitude in the atmosphere, and burns them up both,
and this one came before the Elsa D. It's job was to observe
how much space debris was out there. Sensors, that are housed
inside, catch small space debris, and then it estimates a total
amount of space debris out there. So I was actually planning
to show you guys around this place But a lot of the places,
I actually don't get access to. For example, right behind me is the MCC,
Mission Control Center, and they won't let me inside, because
there's top secret stuff going on there. But oh, well, let's go find Takashi. The building across the
street is part of their office as well. I guess that's Tokyo real estate for you! And now, they have some time to prepare
and discuss the technical points with a big meeting later this afternoon. Finally, lunchtime! They regularly eat at restaurants, but they're in a rush today to make
their off-site afternoon meeting, So they decided to pick up
lunch at the supermarket instead. Whoa! He got the soba and Negitorodon set. Great choice! Now Takashi and his colleague are heading
out to meet GITAI, a Space Robotics Company, to have a technical discussion,
about using their technology, on future space debris removal projects. Wow!
They're taking off their shoes, before entering the office,
this must be a very Japanese Company. Since it's his colleague's
first time meeting, they exchanged "Meishi",
also known as business cards. Which is still a major part of
Japanese business culture. There are certain manners,
on how to give and receive the cards, which is one of the first things you
learn when you work in a Japanese company. For example, when there are
multiple people like today, you exchange cards one by one in order, the person with the highest position,
to the person with the lowest position. Oh and it looks like they made a 3D printed
model of the arm, that they're working on. At this point, though it's probably
classified information. So this meeting looks like
it's going to take some time. Let's try to explore this place, since
we didn't get to explore Takashi's office. So just right behind me, it looks like they have a bunch of
different spare parts to build everything. It's so cool. So this room is completely empty right now
and, to be honest with you, I don't really know what's behind me,
but it looks pretty interesting. Let me know in the comments, if any of
you know what it is or what it does. Oh, that guy's working on
something. Let's ask what he's doing! Can you show me,
what the machine looks like? Oh wow! You have a working model,
and it's connected to VR goggles. Ohhh, it's controlling the
robot over there. That's next level stuff.
And of course, it can pick stuff up. Excuse me. Can I ask what you're doing? Can you show me? I see. The arm takes those
pieces and puts them together like that. Well, that was unexpected. But I think it's time to go back to
the meeting to see what's going on. Oh, perfect. Just in time.
Looks like they're finishing up. Wow! that was quite long. So, are you going back to the office now? What's in the bag? That's actually a Kumon bag for Kei-kun, as he takes Maths and Japanese
Kumon classes, after his nursery school. Kumon schools originated in Japan
to help supplement kids' education, by giving them 30 minute
assignments every day. Nice, he doesn't have a fever,
so he can go to the classroom. Kei-kun usually stays a bit longer,
but because of the pandemic, he only gets his homework checked, and then
picks up new ones to minimize his stay there. Yay, finally home! What are you going to do now? While Haruka prepares for dinner,
Takashi does a little bit of work. So Takashi plays Tamiya Mini four-wheel drive
race cars with Kei-kun when he has time. In fact, Takashi used to
play with it when he was a kid, and just like dad,
Kei-kun is into cars and machines. So it's perfect for
their father and son time. It's pretty amazing how he manages
his work schedule and family time in Japan Whoa dinner's ready.
That looks pretty good. And of course dinner wouldn't
start without Kei-kun's Otōbansan. So after dinner and taking their baths,
they all spend time, by taking turns playing their favorite
PS4 game together, Dragon Quest Eleven. So it looks like this is what
they do at the end of the day. They're probably going to
finish off at around 10 o'clock, because that's when Kei-kun goes to sleep. And then his parents will probably
go to sleep around 12 o'clock. So that's pretty much a day
in the life of a Japanese Space Engineer Let me know what you
guys thought in the comments. If you like this video,
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Really great video! The family bits and the traveling around bits were a nice addition as well. I have never read anything about the Japanese private industry so it was cool to get a peek into it. I like that he has so much hands-on work, but I guess that's normal for smaller companies.