Japan delays spy satellite launch due to bad weather

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said on Wednesday that it is has decided to postpone the launch of an H-2A rocket to send a intelligence-gathering or spy satellite into space from Thursday to Saturday due to poor weather around the launch site in southern Japan's Kagoshima Prefecture.

The radar satellite is the second one of the second pair of spy satellites in Japan's plan of building a global information gathering system. After the final one's successful placement into orbit, Japan will conclude its full global coverage system, which enables the photographing of any point on Earth once a day.

The launch of the rocket was initially scheduled for Feb. 15, but was aborted due to bad weather.

Japan launched the first pair of satellites successfully in March 2003, but failed the launch of a second set due to rocket problems later that year. In September 2006, the first one of the second pair, which is an optical satellite, was put into orbit.

Source: Xinhua