Japan's H-2A Rocket Lifts off with 4 Satellites

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, December 14, 2002

Japan's H-2A Rocket Lifts off with 4 Satellites

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Japan's fourth H-2A rocket, carrying four satellites, lifted off Saturday morning from the Tanegashima Space Center of Japan's National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan's Kyodo News reported.

After the launch, the No. 4 unit of the H-2A vehicle is scheduled to first release into orbit the Advanced Earth Observation Satellite 2 (ADEOS2) for environmental research at an altitude of around 800 kilometers, it said.

The satellite weighs about 3.7 tons and is the heaviest one to be launched by a Japanese-built rocket.

The 53-meter two-stage rocket measuring around 4 m in diameter will then release the other three satellites, including Australia's FedSat, a whale ecology observation satellite (WEOS) developed by a Japanese university and NASDA's Micro-LabSat test satellite.

The latest liftoff came after the successful launches of three earlier units of the H-2A since August 2001, an enhanced version of the H2 rocket.

NASDA officials are hoping the latest unit will further enhance the reliability of the rocket in the global satellite market, following the failure on Wednesday of Europe's Ariane-5 rocket, Kyodo said.

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