OILS mie ide geistige EEE
Earth Observation Satellite Project in Japan
Masaichi Hirai
National Space Development Agency
. of Japan
Introduction
The Landsat 1 and 2, which were launched in July,:1972, and
January, 1975, respectively, have demonstrated their great use-
fulness for the exploration of Earth resources, the effective man-
agement of land use, the preservation of environment and so forth.
In Japan, the Science and Technology Agency set up " Study
Group on Interpretation of Earth Resources Satellite Data '' in De-
cember, 1970, and decided to participate in the ERTS- 1 program
and the Skylab EREP program and now is participating in the ERTS
Follow on program.
The Space Activity Commission, the central policy making
body in Japanese space program, decided to establish the receiving
facilities of the observation data by satellite, considering that such
facilities will contribute to the development of the Japanese Earth
observation satellite system. In accordance with this decision,
the National Space Development Agency of Japan is now working at
the construction of the ground station for receiving the Landsat data.
The station is scheduled to be in operation early 1979,
In parallel with this program, the development of the Earth
observation satellites was started. The first satellite, which is
called Marine Observation Satellite MOS-1, is now under design
with target date of its launch in 1983.
This paper outlines the conceptional design of the MOS-1 as
well as the Landsat receiving facilities under construction.
Development of MOS-1
Objectives
As Japan is surrounded by seas, marine resources and states
of seas are of great concerns. As Japan is not wide, the effective
management of land use is of another importance.
The objectives of the first Earth Observation Satellite is to
develop the fundamental technologies which are common to both
marine and land observation satellites. But, the first satellite
under development is regarded as a marine one because of the
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