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NASDA, Japan
2002/12/03

Watching the Earth from 800 km Above
   -- 11 days before a launch --
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While various inspections and confirmation after the cryogenic test 
are still underway for the launch vehicle, encapsulation operations 
for the payloads by the fairing were completed yesterday. Today, 
battery trickle charging operations are being carried out for the 
Advanced Earth Observing Satellite-II (ADEOS-II) and piggy-back 
payloads.

ADEOS-II has five eyes (sensors)(*1) to observe the earth. Leveraging 
those five sensors, ADEOS-II will collect important data for 
understanding and clarifying global-scale environmental changes.  In 
addition to the two sensors developed by NASDA, AMSR and GLI(*2), the
following three sensors are onboard.

 - Improved Limb Atmospheric Spectrometer-II (ILAS-II):
Developed by the Ministry of Environment/Japan, this sensor is aiming 
at elucidating the mechanism of ozone layer depletion by observing 
ozone layers over the North and South Poles.

- SeaWinds:
Developed by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), it is to clarify 
the global-scale meteorological system by observing ocean surface wind 
velocity and direction every day. Acquired data will be used for 
improving the accuracy of the weather forecast.

- Polarization and Directionality of the Earth Reflectances (POLDER):
Developed by Center National d�f Etudes Spatiales (CNES), it is for
understanding carbon circulation by photosynthesis of ocean and ground
animals and plants quantitatively by observing solar radiation 
reflected by aerosol in the atmosphere, clouds and the ocean.

Observation by five sensors will enable ADEOS-II to collect essential 
data to understand and clarify important factors, such as "water and 
energy circulations", "carbon circulation among the land, atmosphere, 
and ocean", and "ozone layer generation and depletion
mechanisms", for 
global environmental changes.

(*1)Please refer to the daily report datedNov. 15
(*2)The sensors explained in the daily report datedNov. 18.
AMSR:Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer, GLI: Global Imager

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