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Report: Japan's First Satellite Due Back to Earth After 33 Years
By Associated Press
posted: 12:01 pm ET
03 August 2003
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Untitled TOKYO (AP) -- Japan's first satellite is due to re-enter Earth's atmosphere and burn up Saturday, 33 years after it was launched in a test mission, media reports said. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration has notified the Japanese education and science ministry that the Osumi satellite is expected to make its re-entry some time during the day, public TV broadcaster NHK said. The test satellite, launched on a Lamda 4S rocket in February 1970, was Japan's first such solo effort. Japan became the fourth country in the world after Russia, the United States and France, to accomplish the feat, according to the Asahi newspaper. The main purpose of the mission was to successfully place the satellite into orbit. It only functioned for a day before shutting down, and took three decades to make its return journey of more than 5,000 kilometers (3100 miles), the paper said. The reports said the craft is expected to completely burn up, but neither specified the estimated time of its re-entry. Calls to both the ministry and the National Space Development Agency of Japan went unanswered Saturday. Since the 1970 launch, Japan has invested heavily to compete in the commercial satellite launching market, though its record has been checkered with technical successes and failures. A February launch of Japan's H-2A rocket, the main focus of its space program, ended in failure when one of the probes was lost in space. But the project got a boost a month later, when Japan successfully launched its first spy satellites.
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