At 01:21 UTC on the 1st February, the Japanese H-2A rocket launched the mysterious IGS-Radar Spare satellite into orbit.
The IGS satellites are military intelligence spacecraft, and hence information regarding their design and operation is limited. They are built by Mitsubishi Electric, which indicates they are built on a commercial satellite bus. It has been suggested that it is a third generation of SAR satellites. SAR stands for Synthetic Aperture Radar, which allows the satellite to peer through clouds and observe targets at night. The satellite will most likely take over from IGS-7A (IGS-Radar 3) launched in December 2011, suggesting the mission lifetime of these satellites is 3 years. There will be another IGS satellite launch in March of April of this year, which will be an operational fifth generation optical satellite following the experimental fifth generation satellite launched in 2013.
This was the fourth launch of 2015, and the first for Japan. There are three more launches expected for Japan this year, the aforementioned IGS satellite, the Astro-H X-ray observatory, and the Telstar-12V communications satellite.
The IGS satellites are military intelligence spacecraft, and hence information regarding their design and operation is limited. They are built by Mitsubishi Electric, which indicates they are built on a commercial satellite bus. It has been suggested that it is a third generation of SAR satellites. SAR stands for Synthetic Aperture Radar, which allows the satellite to peer through clouds and observe targets at night. The satellite will most likely take over from IGS-7A (IGS-Radar 3) launched in December 2011, suggesting the mission lifetime of these satellites is 3 years. There will be another IGS satellite launch in March of April of this year, which will be an operational fifth generation optical satellite following the experimental fifth generation satellite launched in 2013.
This was the fourth launch of 2015, and the first for Japan. There are three more launches expected for Japan this year, the aforementioned IGS satellite, the Astro-H X-ray observatory, and the Telstar-12V communications satellite.