RAIKO ( ja, 雷鼓, literally ''thunder drum'') is a 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 ...

which was built and operated by Tohoku and

Wakayama Wakayama may refer to: *Wakayama Prefecture, a prefecture of Japan *Wakayama (city) Wakayama City Hall is the capital city of Wakayama Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 351,391 in 157066 househol ...

Universities. A two-unit

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...

, RAIKO was deployed from the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

(ISS) on 4 October 2012, having been launched on 21 July 2012. RAIKO was launched aboard the

Kounotori 3 Kounotori 3 ( ja, こうのとり3号機; English: "white stork" ), also known as HTV-3, was the third flight of the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle. It was launched on 21 July 2012 to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the H ...

(HTV-3) spacecraft, atop an

H-IIB H-IIB (H2B) was an expendable space launch system jointly developed by the Japanese government's space agency JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It was used to launch the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV, or ''Kōnotori'') cargo spacecraft for ...

launch vehicle flying from pad LC-Y2 of the

Yoshinobu Launch Complex Yoshinobu Launch Complex (LC-Y) is a rocket launch site at the Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima. The site and its collection of facilities were originally built for the H-II launch vehicle and later used for H-IIA and H-IIB launches. ...

at 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 ...

. The launch occurred at 02:06:18 UTC on 21 July 2012. Four other CubeSats were launched with RAIKO;

WE WISH WE WISH (World Environmental Watching and Investigation from Space Height) was a small commercial CubeSat which was deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) in October 2012 and which deorbited in March 2013. It was built by the Japan ...

, FITSAT-1, TechEdSat-1 and F-1. The five CubeSats was delivered to the International Space Station for deployment. CubeSats were deployed from Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) '' Kibō'' via the J-SSOD system on 4 October 2012. Named after a Japanese god of thunder, RAIKO is a spacecraft, which was used for technology demonstration. It carries a camera with a

fish-eye lens A fisheye lens is an ultra wide-angle lens that produces strong visual distortion intended to create a wide panoramic or hemispherical image. Fisheye lenses achieve extremely wide angles of view, well beyond any rectilinear lens. Instead of pr ...

for

Earth imaging Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell ima ...

, a prototype

star tracker A star tracker is an optical device that measures the positions of stars using photocells or a camera. As the positions of many stars have been measured by astronomers to a high degree of accuracy, a star tracker on a satellite or spacecraft may ...

, a deployable membrane to slow the satellite, lowering its orbit, a photographic system to measure the satellite's movement relative to the International Space Station, and a

Ku-band The Ku band () is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies from 12 to 18 gigahertz (GHz). The symbol is short for "K-under" (originally german: Kurz-unten), because it is the lower part of the ori ...

antenna for communications and Doppler ranging experiments.

, RAIKO, FITSat 1, F-1, and TechEdSat-1 travelled to orbit aboard

(HTV-3).WE WISH
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References

External links

Official web page
Spacecraft launched in 2012 CubeSats Student satellites Satellites deployed from the International Space Station {{Japan-spacecraft-stub