Japan to launch TV satellite

Press, 10 December 1983, Page 33

Japan to launch TV satellite

NZPA-AFP Tokyo Japan will launch its first broadcasting satellite for practical use on January 23. The satellite, coded BS2A, is mainly geared to help some 420.000 households, located deep in the mountains or on small outlying islands, watch television by satellite colour broadcast, the National Space Development Agency said. The satellite is expected to be put into a stationary orbit 360,000 km above the western part of Borneo island on the Equator, one month after the lift-off on a rocket from Tanegashima Island, southern Japan. Weighing 350 kg, the satellite will have a 100-watt radio amplifier capable of monitoring and transmitting two colour television channels, the agency said. The Japan Broadcasting Corporation (N.H.K.) plans to start television broadcasting via the satellite next May. The BS2A, built by the Toshiba Corporation of Japan, and the General Electric Corporation of the United States, is estimated to last five years and be relieved by a similar craft in the summer of 1985, the agency said. The agency and the N.H.K. are bearing some 24.4 billion yen ($NZ159.6 million) in costs to develop, build and launch the satellite.