Posted: Sat, May 24, 2014, 12:57 PM ET (1657 GMT)
A Japanese rocket placed into orbit on Saturday an Earth observation satellite equipped with a mapping radar. The H-2A rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center at 11:05 pm EDT Friday (0303 GTM, 12:05 pm local time Saturday) and released the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-2 (ALOS-2), also known as Daichi-2, into a Sun-synchronous orbit about 15 minutes later. ALOS-2 is equipped with a synthetic aperture radar to provide all-weather high-resolution images of the Earth. The spacecraft is the successor to the original ALOS, which launched in 2006 but malfunctioned in 2011.

Related Links:

•  Spaceflight Now article
•  NASASpaceFlight.com article
•  Asahi Shimbun article
•  AFP/Japan Times article
•  JAXA press release