Posted on 03/27/2003 8:29:01 PM PST by HAL9000
TANEGASHIMA, March 28, Kyodo -Japan successfully launched two spy satellites into orbit Friday morning to enable it to monitor North Korea's missile and nuclear activities.
An H-2A rocket carrying the two spy satellites blasted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Kagoshima Prefecture at 10:27 a.m. as planned, the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) said.
The rocket, the fifth version of the domestically developed launch vehicle, split off the two information-gathering satellites by around 10:50 a.m., and the satellites opened their solar battery panels shortly after 11 a.m., NASDA and government officials said.
The skies were clear early Friday and strong winds that blew in the area overnight did not grow powerful enough to prevent the liftoff, the officials said.
The government has no information to confirm speculation that North Korea would test-fire missiles in synchronization with Japan's launching of its first spy satellites, Defense Agency Director General Shigeru Ishiba told reporters.
''It is meaningful for us to obtain by ourselves information to ensure the peace, safety and independence of our country,'' Ishiba said at the prime minister's office after a cabinet meeting.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, the top government spokesman, told reporters separately that the launching of the spy satellites will not undermine the national security policy limited to self-defense under the war-renouncing Constitution.
''We are not going to gather information to attack foreign countries or invade them,'' Fukuda said.
The government said two satellites -- one equipped with an optical sensor and the other with a synthetic aperture radar and are said able to distinguish such objects as a car on earth -- are intended to bolster Japan's national defense and help the nation cope with natural disasters.
But it is widely believed that their main purpose is to keep an eye on North Korea. The government decided to deploy intelligence satellites after North Korea launched a Taepodong ballistic missile in 1998, part of which flew over the Japanese Archipelago and fell into the Pacific Ocean.
The satellite project marks a major turnaround in Japan's space development policy, which had been based on the principle of peaceful, nonmilitary use of space.
North Korea has slammed the Japanese decision to launch spy satellites, calling it a hostile act and warning Japan it is heading for ''self-destruction.'' Pyongyang maintains the 1998 launching was a rocket for putting a satellite into orbit.
The Tanegashima space center was under tight security for the launch. Kagoshima police stepped up patrols of the area and the Japan Coast Guard patrolled the Tanegashima area in the air and at sea.
In Tokyo on Thursday, the government inaugurated the Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center, which oversees the spy satellites, with 320 officials, including nearly 100 satellite image analysts.
The government plans to launch two more intelligence satellites this summer and expects to start receiving and analyzing data from the four spy satellites in the string, officials said.
Japan plans to launch a total of eight spy satellites by March 2009 and is considering sending a data relay satellite into geostationary orbit, they said.
It also plans to boost personnel at the Satellite Intelligence Center so that it can analyze satellite images round the clock.
At present, Japan relies mostly on U.S. satellite information and communications signal intercepts to learn of North Korean missile launches, including the test-firing of two missiles in late February and earlier in March.
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