Tachikawa Antarctic and Arctic Science Museum: Free Guide and History

The KD604 Snow Vehicle: 5,000 km to the South Pole and Back

In the corner on the history of Japan’s Antarctic research stands the actual KD604 snow vehicle used for the round trip to the South Pole.

According to the museum’s 2014 commentary, one of the major goals of the 7th expedition was a research traverse by snow vehicle from Syowa Station to the South Pole. The KD604 snow vehicle was built for it, drawing on Japanese technology. The expedition members made many requests, such as living space that could stand five months of life on the return journey. The Defense Agency’s Technical Research and Development Institute, which took on the job, designed it with other organisations, and in 1966 the first unit was landed at Syowa Station. Then, from September 1968 to February the following year, four vehicles of the same type completed a 5,000-kilometre research journey to the South Pole and back.

Five months, 5,000 kilometres. Even saying it aloud, the length won’t sink in. For someone who gets out of breath on the 25-minute walk from Tachikawa Station to the museum, comparison is pointless.

The same corner has the cold-weather clothing and dog sleds used by the 1st expedition and models of all of Japan’s Antarctic research ships. On the ice the snow vehicles drove across, people still live today. A window onto that life opens at the back of the museum.

Syowa Station Today, and the Aurora Room

A corner called “This Is Syowa Station” pulls that distant base a little closer.

According to the museum’s commentary, Syowa Station was opened in 1957 by the 1st Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition on Ongul Island, about four kilometres off the Antarctic continent. From four buildings in the 1st expedition’s day, it has grown to some 60 and become a scientific base equipped with all kinds of observation instruments. Here you can see live footage from Syowa Station, a diorama, a private room for wintering members, and the wintering members’ cold-weather clothing.

According to a 2015 commentary, the walls of the members’ room are real wooden insulated panels. At Syowa Station, a fully prefabricated system using wooden insulated panels was achieved for the first time in Japan, so that even members who knew nothing about building could put it together neatly. Japan is six hours ahead of Syowa Station, and the seasons are reversed. The light in the live footage differs in both hour and season from the view outside the windows in Tachikawa.

According to the institute’s records, Syowa Station stands 28.8 metres above sea level: a seaside base. Even so, its record low temperature reached −45.3°C, on 4 September 1982. It was opened in January 1957, at 69°00’25” south. Lay out the numbers and the calm snowscape in the footage suddenly looks formidable.

In the aurora corner, the mechanism by which plasma blowing from the sun collides with the Earth’s magnetism to produce light is explained. Syowa Station is one of the places where auroras are often seen, and the expeditions have been observing them for more than 65 years. On display are actual antennas from PANSY, the large atmospheric radar at Syowa Station, and from EISCAT_3D, the next-generation European incoherent scatter radar in the Arctic.

And then the “TACHIHI Aurora Theater,” where aurora footage filmed for research is shown on a dome screen four metres across. When it is crowded, they say, you may have to stand. Footage shot for research has a different purpose from footage shot for tourists. But while you are looking up at the swaying ribbons of light, that difference hardly matters.

Moon Rock, Mars Rock, and the “Moss Pillars” of the Lake Bed

The rocks and meteorites corner has rocks collected in Antarctica, as well as lunar and Martian meteorites. You can look at real specimens collected by expedition members and researchers under a microscope, and even touch some. According to the museum’s commentary, Antarctica has a mechanism that concentrates meteorites where they can be found, and Japan’s expeditions have collected a great many.

Stones from the Moon and stones from Mars sit side by side in a room in Tachikawa. They fell from space onto the Antarctic ice, were picked up by an expedition, and were carried to a research institute in Tama, the western half of Tokyo. Quite a roundabout house move.

The living-things corner introduces the mosses and lichens that survive in harsh conditions and the Southern Ocean ecosystem centred on Antarctic krill. According to the museum’s 2013 commentary, only two kinds of flowering plants grow on the Antarctic continent, both on the Antarctic Peninsula. Mosses and lichens grow less than a millimetre a year. Meanwhile, at the bottom of ponds filled with meltwater there is an ecosystem of mosses, algae, tardigrades and bacteria. The “koke-bozu” (“moss monks”), pillars built mainly of moss, are said to take a thousand years to grow 80 centimetres tall.

Eighty centimetres in a thousand years: on average, 0.8 millimetres a year. Not a way of life for the impatient.

The Antarctic and Arctic Science Museum by the Numbers

From the National Institute of Polar Research’s “NIPR in Numbers,” a few figures that stopped me in my tracks:

• −18.6°C — the highest temperature ever recorded at Dome Fuji Station. The hottest day that base has ever had.
• −79.7°C — the record low at the same station, on the ice at 3,810 metres above sea level. Just reading the number numbs your fingertips.
• 8,760 hours — the annual operating hours of the institute’s low-temperature laboratory in fiscal 2025. A year has 8,760 hours, so it never stopped.
• About 17,400 — the number of meteorite specimens the institute holds. Tachikawa, it turns out, is also a town of meteorites.
• 4,213 — the cumulative number of members of Japan’s Antarctic Research Expeditions, from the 1st to the 67th.
• 445,217 — the total number of visitors to the museum from its opening on 24 July 2010 to 1 July 2026. Whether they all touched the Antarctic ice, there are no statistics.

The Wanderer’s Quiz

What is the highest temperature ever recorded at Syowa Station in Antarctica? A: −2.7°C. B: +10.0°C. C: +25.0°C. The answer comes at the end of this walk.

Step out of the museum and the autumn sky over Midori-cho is wide. We are nearly at the answer to the mystery.

Seventy Years of Antarctic Research, and Autumn in the Research District

2026 is also a milestone year for Japan’s Antarctic research. As a project to mark 70 years of Antarctic research, the National Institute of Polar Research held a photo exhibition at the museum, looking back through photographs and a timeline from the 1st expedition, which departed in 1956, to the 67th, now wintering at Syowa Station.

Seventy Years of Antarctica, Counted from Tachikawa

The institute’s “NIPR in Numbers” counts these seventy years from another angle. The 1st expedition departed in November 1956. The first research ship was the Japan Coast Guard’s “Soya,” which sailed to Antarctica until the 6th expedition. The second, “Fuji,” entered service in 1965; the third, “Shirase,” in 1983; and the fourth, the new “Shirase,” in 2009. The screw blade outside the museum belongs to the third ship — that is, the first “Shirase.”

In 1956 (Showa 31), when the 1st expedition set off aboard the “Soya,” the flat land where the museum now stands lay inside an airfield taken over by the US military. It was returned in 1977 (Showa 52). When Japan’s Antarctic research began, Tachikawa’s children could not even set foot on this land. Today, on the same ground, children lay their hands on Antarctic ice. For anyone who knew Tachikawa in the Showa years, that alone is a story.

The 67th expedition has 29 wintering members and 84 summer members. Participants from the 1st to the 67th total 4,213, of whom 250 are women. The 67th expedition carried 1,086 tonnes of supplies to Syowa Station, 749 tonnes of it fuel. Nearly 70 percent of the cargo is fuel. To live in Antarctica is, before anything else, to keep burning.

The Antarctic Treaty came into force in 1961. Its 12 original signatories include Japan. Today 20 countries carry out wintering research in Antarctica, at 44 stations. At one of them, Japan’s Syowa Station, the annual mean temperature is −10.4°C and the annual mean wind speed 6.7 metres per second. Even on a winter day when the north wind feels bitter in Tachikawa, it is far warmer than an average day at Syowa.

The centre of the administration, research and preparation behind this whole bundle of numbers is in Midori-cho, Tachikawa. Behind the quiet exhibition rooms of the museum, the institute carries on the work of sending out the next expedition.

The museum itself is still young. According to the institute’s history, the National Institute of Polar Research was founded on 29 September 1973. It moved to Midori-cho in May 2009, and the museum opened in July 2010.

The Institute of Statistical Mathematics next door is older. It was established in June 1944 (Showa 19) as an institute under the direct control of the Ministry of Education, to research the mathematics of probability and its applications. An institute of probability, founded in the middle of a war. In 1985 (Showa 60) it was reorganised as an Inter-University Research Institute, sharing research and facilities with university researchers.

The National Institute of Japanese Literature was founded in May 1972, absorbing the Ministry of Education’s Historical Archives, set up in 1951. Its opening ceremony was in June 1977, and its reading-room service began in July of the same year. It took five years to welcome its first user. No hurry — very much in character for people who handle the classics.

The Research District Through the Seasons

The Midori-cho research district has a face for each season. Every year the National Institute of Polar Research holds an open day, “Kyokuchiken Tanken” (“Exploring the Polar Institute”). In 2025 it was held on 27 September and drew 2,805 visitors. In 2026 it was on 3 October, when the museum closed at 16:00 and the institute’s car park could not be used. For one autumn day, the inside of the institute, normally closed to the public, opens up.

The institute also holds “NIPR Science Café” talks by researchers and former expedition members. In autumn 2026, a session on working aboard an Arctic research vessel is scheduled for 6 November, and one on the work and life of an Antarctic expedition as seen by its public-relations member for 7 December. Hearing about Antarctica in person, in Tachikawa. At the threshold of winter, chances to hear such a far-off story so close at hand are rare.

The National Institute of Japanese Literature has an exhibition room too. From 1 October to 27 November 2026 it holds a special exhibition, “Calligraphy, Paintings and Letters of the Edo and Meiji Periods” (from the Kitano collection, 北野克コレクション). From 22 January to 18 March next year, a regular exhibition, “The History of Classical Japanese Literature Seen Through Books,” is planned. Touching Antarctic ice and looking at Edo-period letters in a single day: I know of no other place where you can take a walk like that.

Now, back to the first mystery. Why is there Antarctica in Tachikawa?

Half the answer lies in the airfield. The Taisho-era Army chose Tachikawa because it was close to the capital, wide and flat, and on the railway. When that airfield was returned, the people who read gathered their institutes on the freed-up flat land. As I see it, the same three conditions that drew aeroplanes drew Antarctic researchers some eighty years later.

That is also where the déjà vu I felt reading the disaster-base documents came from. Neither too close to the capital nor too far. A plateau with good ground. Wide-open space. The conditions the Taisho Army demanded of an airfield, the Heisei-era state demanded of a command centre for emergencies. Tachikawa’s flatness has been chosen by the nation again and again, from Taisho to Heisei.

Let me answer the first question once more. What is there in Tachikawa? There is Antarctica. There is the centre of Japan’s Antarctic research. There is the nation’s reserve command centre for the day the Prime Minister’s Office cannot be used. There are Edo-period classical books, the mathematics of probability, and the study of the Japanese language. Tachikawa, so often thought of as a plain town, is in fact a town that quietly keeps some of the nation’s most important things.

That does not solve the whole mystery, though. The other half, everyone who has laid a hand on the ice can take home in their own way. Even after leaving the museum, a little of Antarctica’s cold remains in my palm. As I walk, it melts into my own body heat.

Answer to the Quiz

The answer is B, +10.0°C. According to the National Institute of Polar Research’s “NIPR in Numbers,” Syowa Station’s record high is +10.0°C, on 21 January 1977. Option A, −2.7°C, is the record high at Mizuho Station, which stood at 2,244 metres above sea level. In Antarctica, a temperature above zero is a proper record.

Before You Go

• Getting to Tachikawa: from central Tokyo, take the JR Chuo Line from Shinjuku to Tachikawa with no change of trains. From Kanagawa, the JR Nambu Line links Kawasaki and Tachikawa (35.5 km) with no change. Check timetables and journey times on JR East’s official site. An IC card such as Suica or PASMO saves buying a ticket for every ride.
• National Institute of Polar Research, Antarctic and Arctic Science Museum: 10-3 Midori-cho, Tachikawa, Tokyo. Ten minutes on foot from Takamatsu Station on the Tama Monorail (one stop from Tachikawa-Kita). About 25 minutes on foot from the North Exit of JR Tachikawa Station. By Tachikawa Bus, take a bus via Tachikawa City Hall from stop 2 or 3 at the North Exit of Tachikawa Station, get off at “Tachikawa Gakujutsu Plaza,” and walk one minute (from the official access guide).
• Official museum website: https://www.nipr.ac.jp/science-museum/ (the official site says admission is free. Opening hours, closing days and temporary closures can change, so check the latest there. The museum is generally closed on Sundays, Mondays and national holidays, among other days.)
• Access details: https://www.nipr.ac.jp/science-museum/access/
• National Institute of Japanese Literature: 10-3 Midori-cho, Tachikawa. Check exhibition dates and exhibition-room closing days on the official site: https://www.nijl.ac.jp/
• Institute of Statistical Mathematics: https://www.ism.ac.jp/ / National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (10-2 Midori-cho): https://www.ninjal.ac.jp/
• Time needed: ten minutes on foot from Takamatsu Station, about 25 minutes from Tachikawa Station North Exit, one minute from the “Tachikawa Gakujutsu Plaza” bus stop (all from the official access guide). There is no official guide to how long to spend inside. A writer for a travel-feature site who visited wrote that before they knew it they had stayed about an hour. The Aurora Theater may be standing-room only when busy.
• Combine with: take the Tama Monorail one way, and enjoy the view to Takamatsu (our monorail guide). Walking back to the station, you can pass through the artworks of Faret Tachikawa. With half a day more, join it up with Showa Kinen Park, built on the same former airfield, or the Tachihi district, for a full day’s walk.
• Manners: the institutes around the museum are working research facilities and government offices. Keep to public paths and don’t wander into their grounds unless there is an open day.

Back from Antarctica, at Tachikawa Station North Exit

Walk back from Midori-cho to the station and you merge into the crowd at the North Exit. One minute from the ticket gates, on the third floor of the Etoile Building at 2-14-10 Akebonocho, Tachikawa, Tokyo, is On the Shore Tachikawa (オンザショア立川店), a lava-stone hot yoga studio.

Touching Antarctic ice, then stepping into a warm room: tasting that contrast in a single day may be one more way to walk Tachikawa. Besides hot yoga on heated lava-stone floors, the studio offers room-temperature yoga, Pilates, women-only kickboxercise, boxercise, HIIT and personal training, with more than 25 kinds of yoga lessons.

It is open every day from 8:00 to 23:30, with no difference between days of the week, so you can still make it even after walking the research district until evening.

If it is your first time, there is a trial yoga lesson for ¥1,980 including tax, with two bath towels, one face towel and a mat to rent included. Pregnant guests cannot join lava-stone hot yoga, but room-temperature maternity yoga is available. Many of our yoga instructors speak English, and the studio’s owner, Naomi Fujita, who holds Japan’s top English qualification (Eiken Grade 1) and a perfect TOEIC score and once worked as a translator and overseas interpreter at Nomura Securities, and who lived in Alaska for three years, often helps guests from the US bases in English herself (visitors from abroad have even left Google reviews about the care they received in English); if you would like an English-friendly lesson, just say so when you book.

Studio information is at https://ontheshore.jp/ , and trial lessons can be booked at https://site.locaop.jp/C0aVK?_src=hp .

The cold of Antarctica and the warmth of lava stone: both lie within walking distance in the same town.

Cover photo: The National Institute of Polar Research building, home of the museum, its low grey wall following a grassy slope (Photo: Sho Kuroda / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons)

Information as of October 2026.

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