are the

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 ...

s of the Japanese

spy satellite A reconnaissance satellite or intelligence satellite (commonly, although unofficially, referred to as a spy satellite) is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications. The ...

program. It was started as a response to the 1998

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

n missile test over Japan. The satellite program's main mission is to provide early warning of impending hostile launches in the region. This program is under the direct control of the cabinet. All Information Gathering Satellites have been launched 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 ...

rockets from the

Tanegashima Space Center The (TNSC) is the largest rocket-launch complex in Japan with a total area of about 9.7 square kilometers. It is located on the southeast coast of Tanegashima, an island approximately south of Kyushu. It was established in 1969 when the ...

History

On 28 March 2003, presumably partly in response to

's launch of a

Taepodong-1 Taepodong-1 ( ko, 대포동-1) was a three-stage technology demonstrator developed by North Korea, a development step toward an intermediate-range ballistic missile. The missile was derived originally from the Scud rocket and was tested once in 1 ...

missile over Japan in 1998, and partly to provide a source of satellite images other than through cooperation with the US, where the US charged roughly US$10,000 for each satellite image, Japan launched a radar and an optical

, officially known as IGS 1A and IGS 1B.· These satellites follow one another at 37-minute separation in a 492 km orbit, which passes over

Pyongyang Pyongyang (, , ) is the capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is known as the "Capital of the Revolution". Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. According to the 2008 populatio ...

at 11:22 each day, according to observations collected on the

satellite watching Satellite watching or satellite spotting is a hobby which consists of the observation and tracking of artificial satellites that are orbiting Earth. People with this hobby are variously called satellite watchers, trackers, spotters, observers, ...

mailing list. The program suffered a setback when Japan lost the second pair of satellites because of an

launch failure on 29 November 2003. Except the satellite which failed in launching, a second optical surveillance satellite IGS 3A was launched on 11 September 2006. A third optical satellite IGS 4A and a second radar satellite IGS 4B were launched on 24 February 2007. IGS 4A is a more advanced and experimental optical satellite. A fourth optical satellite IGS 5A was launched on 28 November 2009. This satellite has a higher resolution than the previous generations. Late March 2007, the first

SAR SAR or Sar may refer to: Places * Sar (river), Galicia, Spain * Sar, Bahrain, a residential district * Sar, Iran (disambiguation), several places in Iran * Sar, Tibet, Tibet Autonomous Region of China * Šar Mountains, in southeastern Europe ...

satellite in the series, IGS 1B, suffered a critical power failure.· The satellite has since been observed to steadily come down and was clearly no longer under control. An uncontrolled re-entry of this satellite occurred on 26 July 2012. Since summer 2010, another of the SAR satellites, IGS 4B has also been unable to carry out its monitoring functions. On 9 February 2020, Japan launched IGS-Optical 7 reconnaissance satellite from the

aboard an H-2A rocket. The launch had been delayed by 12-days due to a nitrogen leak, located within a system that provided conditioned air to the rocket, which was discovered sometime before the countdown to launch was aborted on 27 January. Following the discovery of the leak, the rocket was returned to its vertical assembly building, where it underwent repairs. Following the completion of the repairs, the rocket was rolled back out to Launch Pad No. 1 on 7 February, before the scheduled second launch attempt.https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/02/09/h-2a-f41-launch/ - 9 February 2020

List of launches

References

External links

Lifting The Darkness On Japan's Next Spy Satellite
, SpaceDaily, 27 November 2006. {{Japanese space program Imaging reconnaissance satellites Space program of Japan Synthetic aperture radar satellites Spacecraft launched by H-II rockets Satellite series Military equipment introduced in the 2000s