Posted: Sun, Oct 26, 2003, 12:41 PM ET (1741 GMT)
Ground controllers have lost contact with a Japanese remote sensing satellite launched last year, the Japanese space agency JAXA reported Saturday. According to a JAXA press release, the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite 2 (ADEOS-2), also known as Midori-2, failed to transmit a scheduled download of data Saturday morning. Controllers later found that the spacecraft had entered a "light load mode", or type of safe mode where the spacecraft's instruments are powered down, because of an "unknown anomaly." The spacecraft's solar panel was generating only 1 kilowatt of power, instead of the normal 6 kW, by that time. Contract with ADEOS-2 was lost completely later Saturday morning and has not been restored. ADEOS-2 was launched into Sun-synchronous orbit in December 2002 on a Japanese H-2A rocket. The $587-million spacecraft was intended to study the Earth's environment for five years. Its predecessor, ADEOS, was lost because of a solar panel malfunction in 1997.

Related Links:

•  JAXA press release
•  Spaceflight Now article
•  AFP article