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NASDA, Japan
2002/12/02

 ADEOS-II Orbit   -- 12 days before a launch --
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In the Spacecraft and Fairing Assembly Building, encapsulation 
operations of the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite-II (ADEOS-II) are 
still continuing.  On Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, the fairing separation 
mechanism, such as pyrotechnics and separation bolts, was installed. 
The mechanism is necessary for jettisoning the fairing during flight.

The payload fairing will be jettisoned in approximately four minutes 
and 20 seconds after liftoff. After the jettison, subsequent flight 
events, including first and second stages separation, second stage 
engine ignition and cutoff, and second stage coast flight, will occur, 
and, in about 16 minutes after liftoff, ADEOS-II will be separated 
from the launch vehicle and injected into its orbit. The altitude at 
the separation is scheduled to be approximately 800 km.

ADEOS-II will be injected into sun-synchronous subrecurrent orbit, 
which circulates around the earth vertically, and ADEOS-II will make 
one revolution around the earth in about 101 minutes. In this type of 
orbit, a satellite comes back to pass over one specific location on 
the earth every few days thus the orbit has its advantage to enable a 
satellite to observe a specific location in a constant manner. 
ADEOS-II will come back to the same position every four days.

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