Himawari 9 is a Japanese

weather satellite A weather satellite or meteorological satellite is a type of Earth observation satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites can be polar orbiting (covering the entire Earth asynchronously), or ...

, the 9th of the Himawari geostationary weather satellite operated by the

Japan Meteorological Agency The , abbreviated JMA, is an agency of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. It is charged with gathering and providing results for the public in Japan that are obtained from data based on daily scientific observation an ...

. The spacecraft was constructed by Mitsubishi Electric, and is the second of two similar satellites to be based on the DS-2000 bus.

Launch

Himawari 9 was launched on 2 November 2016, 06:20:00 UTC, atop a

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 o ...

rocket flying from 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. I ...

Pad 1 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 ...

, and by 11 November 2016 it reached to the geostationary point at 140.7 degrees East. After initial function tests, it was put on standby until 05:00 UTC by 13 December 2022, when it succeeded

Himawari 8 is a Japanese weather satellite, the 8th of the Himawari geostationary weather satellites operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency. The spacecraft was constructed by Mitsubishi Electric with assistance from Boeing, and is the first of two ...

. The launch was scheduled initially on 1 November 2016, but postponed for one day due to the bad weather forecast. At launch, the mass of the satellite is about . It has a design life of 15 years with 8 years of operational life. Power is supplied by a single gallium arsenide solar panel, which provides up to 2.6 kilowatts of power. The main instrument aboard Himawari 9 is a 16 channel multispectral imager to capture visible light and infrared images of the Asian-Pacific region. As part of an outreach project organized by the Young Astronauts Club Japan the launch also carried manga artwork drawn by Chūya Koyama, author of the Space Brothers manga.

Gallery

Himawari-9 full-disc 2017-01-24 0240Z.jpg, The first true-color image from Himawari 9 Himawari 9 2022-12-14 0230Z.png, The first full disk true-color image from Himawari 9 since being operational

References

External links

Meteorological Satellite Center of JMAHimawari 9 3D model
from Asahi Shinbun {{Orbital launches in 2016 Satellites using the DS2000 bus Spacecraft launched in 2016 2016 in Japan Himawari satellite series