Courtesy Of: The International News
Sunday, February 25, 2007,
Safar 7, 1428 A.H.
TheNews.Com.PK
TOKYO: Japan launched its fourth spy satellite on Saturday, improving its ability to monitor potential threats including North Korea, whose missile and nuclear tests have spooked the region.
An H-2A rocket, delayed three times by bad weather, finally lifted off from the southern island of Tanegashima, carrying a radar satellite that will join two optical satellites and another radar satellite already in operation.
With the full complement of four satellites, Japan will be able to monitor any point on Earth once a day, government officials have said.
Japan’s spy satellite programme was initiated after North Korea launched a ballistic missile in 1998 that flew over Japan. The programme was delayed in 2003 when a rocket carrying two satellites veered off course and had to be destroyed in a spectacular fireball.
...Japan’s space scientists have long complained that the country’s technical prowess has fallen behind because of a 1969 parliamentary resolution limiting the use of space to peaceful purposes.
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