Japan's main launch center is located at the southern tip of Tanegashima island making it the world's most spectacular launch center and the perfect destination for anyone in need of a launch junket. Stay at nearby Ryokan's or the luxurious Hotel Cosmo and enjoy sun, surf and sake while the inevitable launch problems delays your return to the office for weeks if not months.

The MTSAT mission will be to support and test new air traffic control systems that will improve aircraft navigation and control, and to provide meteorological support as the replacement to GMS-5.

In the mid-90s Japan decided that instead of conducting each of these missions with individual satellites it would build a single GEO sat freeing up a valuable orbital slot for domestic commercial satellite operators.

Japan is hoping the aeronautical mission will last ten years or more, while the meteorological segment is slated as a five-year mission. As with the GMS series, MTSAT will be deployed in geo-orbit at the same position of 140 degrees East.

Although slated as H2#8 - the mission is in fact the seventh for the problem plagued two-stage launcher which first made its debut in February 1994. Since then the rocket has been launched without any inflight incidents other than the typical problems that derail so many countdowns.

The only significant problem at launch was in August 1994 when moments after the main liquid fuel engines were ignited a problem was detected with the strap on solid rocket boosters resulting in a launch abort at T minus 4 seconds.

However, Japan's problems are not centered on an overly expensive and hence under-utilized rocket, but rather ongoing problems with satellite payloads that has seen NASDA with only one partly successful science mission - ETS-7 in the past five years.

Launcher - SpaceDaily Special Report

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