• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Japan Successfully Launches Optical Communication Test Satellite

Posted on: Wednesday, 24 August 2005, 18:00 CDT

Tokyo, Aug. 24 (Jiji Press)--The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, known as JAXA, successfully launched an optical communication test satellite and a small scientific satellite from a Kazakh space center early Wednesday morning.

A launch vehicle, carrying the 570-kilogram Optical Interorbit Communications Engineering Test Satellite, or OICETS, and the 70- kilogram Innovative Technology Demonstration Experiment Satellite, or INDEX, blasted off at the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 3:10 a.m. local time, according to JAXA.

About 15 minutes after the liftoff, the satellites were separated from the launch vehicle, named Dnepr, and put into a low earth orbit.

From late November, OICETS will carry out two-way optical communication tests with the Artemis, a geostationary satellite developed by the European Space Agency, using near-infrared laser beams.

It will be the world's first interactive optical communication tests between nonmilitary satellites.

Optical technology is indispensable for high-speed transmission of huge volumes of data, such as photos of earthquake damage and volcano eruptions taken by earth observation satellites and data on space station experiments.

JAXA is hoping to put the satellite-based optical communication technology into practical use by around 2015.

Meanwhile, INDEX will be used for aurora observation above the North and South Pole.END

Source: Jiji Press English News Service

More News in this Category