Japan to launch two more spy satellites by March 2007
Japan is planning to send two more spy satellites into orbit by March 2007 to monitor North Korea, a media report said Friday.
Kyodo News agency reported that Japan plans to send up two spy satellites during fiscal 2006 ending in March 2007, citing unnamed government sources.
Noriaki Saito, an official of Japan's space agency JAXA, could not confirm the report.
Japan launched two spy satellites in March 2003, but an attempt to send two more in November that year failed because of a defect in the rocket's booster system.
Kyodo said that Japan earlier planned to put two additional satellites in orbit during fiscal 2005 but postponed the launches to the next fiscal year after finding defects in the satellites.
The Japanese government is setting aside about 61 billion yen for the launch and operation of spy satellites for fiscal 2006, the agency reported.
Japan is currently developing a next-generation spy satellite with a higher image-resolution capacity than the existing one, to be launched in fiscal 2009, according to Kyodo.
Tokyo put its first two spy satellites into space in March 2003 as part of a US$2-billion project to watch North Korea's missile and nuclear programs. The move prompted protests from North Korea, which warned Tokyo against triggering a regional arms race.
Japanese officials say the program was prompted by North Korea's surprise test launch of a long-range missile over Japan's main island in 1998. The satellites are not meant as a provocation and would also be used for other missions such as monitoring natural disasters and weather patterns, they say. (AP)
January 6, 2006
