On 6 November 2014, five Japanese satellites were sent into orbit from the Dombarovsky launch site, in Russia.
One of the satellites launched was ASNARO-1, an Earth observation mission funded by the Government of Japan in 2008. The Advanced Satellite with new System Architecture for Observation (ASNARO) mission will be used in the fields of environmental observation, disaster monitoring and security enhancement. ASNARO-1 has an expected life span of 3 years and a swath width of 10 km.
ASNARO-1 was sent into space together with four micro-satellites in the 50-Kilogram weight class dedicated to various technical demonstrations, Earth observation and scientific studies: Hodoyoshi-1, ChubuSat-1, Tsubame and QSAT-EOS. Tsubame is an experimental micro-satellite designed for the remote-sensing of the Earth and for high-energy astrophysics experiments; Hodoyoshi-1 satellite... read more