Air traffic controllers and
meteorologists in Japan have a new tool at their disposal after today's
successful launch of a new satellite that will conduct a dual mission to serve
both communities for the next decade.
As the second member of Japan's Multi-Functional Transport Satellite fleet, MTSAT-2 will join another craft launched one
year ago to aid in air traffic management and weather forecasting throughout
the eastern Asia and western Pacific regions.
MTSAT-2 was delivered into
space by an H-2A rocket that lifted off from the Yoshinobu launch complex at
the Tanegashima space center on the southern end of the Japanese island chain.
Launch occurred at 3:27 p.m. local time, or 1:27 a.m. EST (0627 GMT).
The final countdown ticked
along as planned, and every milestone was successfully completed near the
slated time. The 174-foot (53-meter) tall launcher rolled from its integration
building to its seaside launch pad about twelve hours prior to blastoff.
Fueling of the first and second stages with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen
propellants was finished with six hours to spare.
In addition to the core
two-stage vehicle, the mission required the maximum of six solid rocket
boosters to deliver the 10,000-pound (4,535-kilogram) craft into orbit. Officials
say MTSAT-2 is the heaviest individual satellite ever launched by Japan.
After tracking southeast
across the Pacific Ocean, the launcher's second stage released the satellite as
programmed about 28 minutes after liftoff, and a ground station in Chile
received the first signals from the new spacecraft ten minutes later. The
rocket performed as expected and delivered the payload into geostationary
transfer orbit. The planned orbit had a high point of 22,300 miles (35,888
kilometers), a low point of 155-mile (249-kilometer), and an inclination of
28.5 degrees.
One of the first activities
to bring MTSAT-2 online was to partially deploy the satellite's solar panel to
produce enough electricity to charge the craft's batteries during the critical
commissioning and orbit-raising phase. Three burns of an on-board kick motor
will place the spacecraft into a circular geostationary orbit some 22,300 miles
high within the next three days. In five days, MTSAT-2 should have fully
extended its solar panel and antennas so it can begin a series of tests before
being declared operational for the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau and Japan
Meteorological Agency.
Once testing is complete,
MTSAT-2 will settle into its permanent parking spot in geostationary orbit
along the Equator at 145 degrees East longitude, or directly over Micronesia in the western Pacific.
Built by Mitsubishi
Electric, the spacecraft carries Ku-band, Ka-band, and L-band instruments to
help make air travel more efficient and safer in the Far East and along crowded
trans-oceanic routes over the northern Pacific linking Asia with North America. The two-satellite MTSAT system is a critical part of a new air traffic
control concept using space assets and relay stations to assist controllers in
tracking and communicating with aircraft.
The satellite will provide
direct voice and data links from control centers to the cockpits of airliners -
a vast improvement over the previous heavy reliance on ground-based antennas
with limited range. The MTSAT spacecraft will also help enhance the navigation data
gathered by Global Positioning System satellites, and automatically transmit
that positioning data to air traffic controllers using its data relay
capability when aircraft are beyond the range of radar sites.
During the ten-year
mission, the combined effect of these improvements should expand the airspace
capacity across Japan and the adjacent waters of the Pacific, where crowded
skies have caused difficulties for controllers. Precise navigation information
will be available at air traffic control consoles on radar screens, and direct
communications will be more consistent between pilots and the ground.
MTSAT-2's second
operational objective is to serve as a weather observatory for Japanese
forecasters. The new satellite's sensors will be in a backup mode until around
2010, when MTSAT-1R's meteorological payload surpasses its planned five-year
service life. At that point, MTSAT-2 will assume a primary role in weather
observations, with the older craft trading spots and entering a standby mode.
The craft features an
imager with five total observation channels - four in infrared and one in the
visible wavelength. Upgrades from earlier weather satellites include twice as
many imaging cycles, an improved ability to discern low-level clouds and fog,
and making more accurate sea surface temperature estimates at night.
MTSAT-2 will also collect
weather, seismic, and tidal reports from remote observation posts for relay to
central forecasting centers for analysis by scientists.
Today's flight marked the
ninth time the H-2A rocket took to the skies since it debuted in 2001, and
eight of those missions ended in success. This launch used the "2024"
version of the launcher with two large solid rocket boosters and four smaller
strap-on motors due to the heavy weight of its space-bound payload.
The contract for the launch
of MTSAT-2 was signed in February 2003 between launch provider Rocket System
Corporation and the craft's operators - the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau and the
Japan Meteorological Agency.
The H-2A rocket's next
launch is currently scheduled for no earlier than July with a pair of
reconnaissance satellites to replace those lost in the failure of an H-2A
flight in November 2003. Within the next twelve months, two more H-2A missions
are manifested with the ETS-8 engineering test satellite and another spy
satellite twosome.
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