Japan loses contact with Earth-Monitoring Satellite ADEOS-2

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WASHINGTON — Japan has lost contact with the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite-2 (Adeos-2), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced Oct. 25.

The Earth observing satellite, which was launched in December, failed to make a scheduled data transmission Oct. 25 and engineers subsequently discovered that the craft had turned off all of its observation equipment to minimize power use, JAXA reported. It was later discovered that the spacecraft’s solar panels were producing only 1 kilowatt of power, rather than the normal 6 kilowatts.

Within 90 minutes of the missed data transmission, JAXA lost all contact with Adeos-2. The agency has formed a team to investigate the matter but has yet to declare the satellite lost.

Japan lost its first Advanced Earth Observing Satellite in 1997 due to a solar panel failure.

Adeos-2 is designed to make observations of things such as sea surface temperature, snow and ice distribution, and vegetation patterns in order to help scientists better understand long-term global changes in the atmosphere, oceans and on land.

Source: Space.com