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NASDA, Japan
2002/12/09

Checkup after Mating H-IIA F4 and Payloads
     -- 5 days before a launch --
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The cold weather has prevailed all over Japan since the dawn of the 
8th to the 9th due to the cold air mass sitting still along the south 
coast of Japan. We had snow piled up in Kanto-Koshin region.

At the Tanegashima Space Center, it has also been cold due to the cold 
front that often brought drizzling winter rain. The weather forecast 
said that it would get warmer tomorrow afternoon, thus no weather 
impact was expected for the H-IIA F4 launch scheduled on the 14th.

Mating of H-IIA F4 and its payloads was completed last weekend, and 
the final functional inspection was also conducted on the 7th. Today, 
the launch procedures and operations were reviewed and confirmed for 
the very last time.

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