AOGS Fellows Award

2023 AOGS Fellows
Yoshifumi SAITO

Institute of Space and Astronautical Science,
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Yoshifumi Saito is a professor at Department of Solar System Sciences, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. He received his M.S. from Kyoto University in 1991 and his Ph, D. from the University of Tokyo in 1995.

His research activities have been related to sounding rocket and satellite experiments for study of space plasmas in the Earth’s ionosphere, magnetosphere and around airless bodies such as Moon and Mercury. He has been participating in developments of the space-borne instruments for hot plasma and low-energy particle measurements. Based on the obtained data by the sounding rocket and satellite experiments he has studied elementary processes for transport and acceleration of charged particles in the space plasmas. He is a principal investigator of MAP-PACE on Japanese lunar orbiter Kaguya. Currently he is participating in NASA MMS mission as a Co-I of FPI-DIS, ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission as a PI of MPPE on Mio spacecraft and ESA JUICE mission as a Project Manager of JUICE-ISAS project. He is also participating in the LUPEX (Lunar Polar Exploration) mission by developing a neutral particle mass spectrometer to be installed on a lunar rover.

He has been contributing AOGS since PS (Planetary Sciences) section was established in 2004. He was the first PS section President during 2004-2006. After his term of PS section President, he served AOGS as a secretary general during 2006-2008.