Sagamihara Onsen

Sagamihara Onsen serves Japan's 13th-largest city, whose vast urban expanse extends from the outskirts of greater Tokyo to the foothills of the Tanzawa Mountains and encompasses the headquarters of JAXA's Sagamihara Campus — the nerve center of Japan's space science program and the facility that managed the historic Hayabusa and Hayabusa2 asteroid sample-return missions. The city also contains Lake Sagami and the Miyagase Dam, large reservoirs that supply drinking water to millions of people in Kanagawa Prefecture while offering boating, fishing, and lakeside recreation to Sagamihara's residents. The onsen's mineral baths provide a grounding counterbalance to the city's forward-looking space science identity, connecting the cosmic to the earthly through the ancient ritual of thermal bathing.