NICT
Overview
The Nastional Institue of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) headquartered in Koganei, Tokyo is Japan’s primary research agency for information and communications. NICT was originally established when two preexisting institutions, Japan’s Communications Research Laboratory and the Telecommunications Advancement Organization, merged in 2004. Their responsibilities include establishing the Japanese standards for frequency and time, observing weather patterns in the ionosphere, and testing equipment for marine radar. [1]
NICT has also partnered with JAXA on past projects related to FSO. In 2014 the SOTA module carried on-board the SOCRATES satellite was tested by communicating with 1m class telescopes serving as ground stations located at NICT facilities. Similar tests are planned for JAXA’s JDRS ground to GEO satellite infrastructure. [2]