Tim Furniss/LONDON
Japan's global environmental-monitoring spacecraft, the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS), carrying a suite of NASA instruments, has been lost in Earth orbit.
Trouble began in June, when the craft failed to respond to commands, and later a signal was detected indicating that it was operating on emergency batteries. Contact was lost soon afterwards.
Officials at the Japanese National Space Development Agency (NASDA) say that the satellite's solar array may have been hit by debris because data revealed that it had changed position. US space agency NASA says that the debris theory must be seen as speculation.
The ADEOS, launched in August 1996, had been experiencing technical problems with some payloads since reaching orbit. The NASA instruments consisted of an ozone-detecting spectrometer and a scatterometer to measure ocean waves and windspeed.
The loss of the ADEOS comes as another joint NASA/NASDA satellite is prepared. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) will be carried on an H2 launcher from the Tanegashima Space Centre on 31 October.
The TRMM is the first Earth-science satellite dedicated to the study of tropical and sub-tropical rainfall. It carries microwave and visible/infra-red sensors and the first spaceborne rain radar.
Tropical rainfall makes up over two-thirds of global rainfall and is the primary distributor of heat through circulation of the atmosphere. The TRMM will be accompanied on the Japanese H2 launcher by the country's Engineering Test Satellite 7.
Source: Flight International
