JAXA launched its ASTRO-F infrared space telescope aboard an M-5 rocket at 6:28 a.m. local time Wednesday, the BBC and Xinhua news services reported. The launch had been delayed 48 hours due to heavy rains.
European and Japanese astronomers will use the ASTRO-F to compile the All-Sky Survey, a map of objects in the universe that glow in infrared wavelengths. The mission is scheduled to last 500 days, and the spacecraft will follow a polar orbit.
ASTRO-F marked JAXA’s third launch of 2005, but only the first from Ochinoura. Earlier this year, the agency launched two H-2A rockets carrying observation satellites from the remote southern island of Tanegashima.
ASTRO-F carries an instrument called the Infrared Imaging Surveyor, or IRIS, which employs a 70-centimeter telescope cooled to 6 degrees Kelvin – or 6 degrees above absolute zero – using liquid helium.
Japan’s Institute of Space and Astronomical Sciences will manage the ASTRO-F mission, its 21st. The ASTRO-F project has been underway since 1997.
The Uchinoura Space Center launches sounding rockets and scientific satellites and also manages tracking and data. The center began operations in 1962, and has launched more than 360 rockets since then, among them 23 satellites and probes, launched since Japan’s first satellite, Osumi, was placed into orbit in 1970.
