Posted: Sat, Feb 26, 2005, 9:34 AM ET (1434 GMT)
Japan's H-2A booster successfully returned to flight Saturday, over a year after its last launch ended in failure. The H-2A lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 4:25 am EST (0925 GMT, 6:25 pm local time), carrying the MTSAT-1R satellite. The launch was delayed by more than an hour because of a glitch with the rocket's data transmission system. The satellite separated from the booster's upper stage about 40 minutes after liftoff, having been placed into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. The launch was the first for the H-2A since a November 2003 launch of two spysats; that launch failed when one of the rocket's solid-fuel strap-on boosters failed to separate. MTSAT-1R will be used to replace an aging Japanese weather satellite as well as support Japanese air traffic controllers.
