Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS), also called Daichi (a Japanese word meaning "land"), is a 3810 kg Japanese

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

launched in 2006. After five years of service, the satellite lost power and ceased communication with Earth, but remains in orbit.

Launch

ALOS was launched from

Tanegashima is one of the Ōsumi Islands belonging to Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. The island, 444.99 km2 in area, is the second largest of the Ōsumi Islands, and has a population of 33,000 people. Access to the island is by ferry, or by air to New ...

, Japan, on 24 January 2006 by

H-IIA H-IIA (H-2A) is an active expendable launch system operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. These liquid fuel rockets have been used to launch satellites into geostationary orbit; lunar or ...

No. 8. The launch had been delayed three times by weather and sensor problems.

Mission

The satellite contained three sensors that were used for cartography and disaster monitoring of

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

and the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orb ...

) initially hoped to be able to launch the successor to ALOS during 2011, but this plan did not materialize. In 2008, it was announced that the images generated by ALOS were too blurry to be of any use for map making. Only 52 of 4,300 images of Japan could be updated based on data from ALOS. Then, JAXA announced the problem was solved. ALOS was used to analyze several disaster sites. Images of the devastated Japanese coast following the

2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami The occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on 11 March. The magnitude 9.0–9.1 (M) undersea megathrust earthquake had an epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region, and lasted approximately six minutes ...

were among the last major contributions from ALOS.Last thank-you message to DAICHI from Japan Coast Guard – Advanced Land Observing Satellite "DAICHI" (ALOS)
(JAXA webpage)

Decommissioning

In April 2011, the satellite was found to have switched itself into power-saving mode due to deterioration of its solar arrays. Technicians could no longer confirm that any power was being generated. It was suggested that

meteoroid A meteoroid () is a small rocky or metallic body in outer space. Meteoroids are defined as objects significantly smaller than asteroids, ranging in size from grains to objects up to a meter wide. Objects smaller than this are classified as micr ...

s may have struck ALOS, creating the anomaly which eventually led to its shutdown. On 12 May 2011, JAXA sent a command to the satellite to power down its batteries and declared it dead in orbit.

References

External links

Paper on ALOS
{{Orbital launches in 2006 Earth observation satellites of Japan JAXA Synthetic aperture radar satellites Japan Coast Guard 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami Derelict satellites orbiting Earth Spacecraft launched by H-II rockets Spacecraft launched in 2006

Launch

Mission

Decommissioning

See also

References

External links