Japan writes off ADEOS spacecraft
Posted: Fri, Oct 31, 2003, 7:39 PM ET (0039 GMT)
The Japanese space agency JAXA announced Friday that it has declared the ADOES-2 spacecraft a total loss after losing contact with it for nearly a week. Communications with the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite 2, also known as Midori-2, were lost on October 25 and never regained. In a statement Friday, JAXA said that while it will continue efforts to restore communications, the odds that the Earth-observing spacecraft could resume normal operations was "extremely slim". A solar storm last weekend, similar to stronger ones that struck the Earth earlier this week, may have caused the spacecraft to fail, but no definitive reason for the failure has yet been released. Another Japanese spacecraft, Kodama, shut down earlier in the week during another solar storm, and efforts to restore contact with it continue. 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.
The Japanese space agency JAXA announced Friday that it has declared the ADOES-2 spacecraft a total loss after losing contact with it for nearly a week. Communications with the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite 2, also known as Midori-2, were lost on October 25 and never regained. In a statement Friday, JAXA said that while it will continue efforts to restore communications, the odds that the Earth-observing spacecraft could resume normal operations was "extremely slim". A solar storm last weekend, similar to stronger ones that struck the Earth earlier this week, may have caused the spacecraft to fail, but no definitive reason for the failure has yet been released. Another Japanese spacecraft, Kodama, shut down earlier in the week during another solar storm, and efforts to restore contact with it continue. 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:
| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
|
|
news links
|
|
Sunday, August 2
AST SpaceMobile to Host Second Quarter 2026 Business Update Call on August 10, 2026
AST SpaceMobile — 2:37 pm ET (1837 GMT) AST SpaceMobile Announces Launch Date for BlueBird Satellites 11, 12, and 13
AST SpaceMobile — 2:36 pm ET (1836 GMT) Redwire Corporation to Report Second Quarter 2026 Results on August 5, 2026
Redwire — 2:36 pm ET (1836 GMT) Virgin Galactic Announces Date of Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Conference Call
Virgin Galactic — 2:33 pm ET (1833 GMT) UAE Space Agency: 90-day grace period to regularise status of entities operating in national space sector
WAM — 2:17 pm ET (1817 GMT) |
