WINDS
WINDS (Wideband InterNetworking engineering test and Demonstration Satellite, also known as Kizuna), is a Japanese communication satellite. Launch was originally scheduled for 2007. The launch date was eventually set for 15 February 2008, however a problem detected in a second stage manoeuvring thruster delayed it to 23 February. Lift-off occurred at 08:55 GMT on 23 February, and the satellite separated from the carrier rocket, into a Geosynchronous transfer orbit at 09:23, launched by an H-IIA carrier rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center. It will be used to relay the internet to Japanese homes and businesses, through Ka-Band signals. It will also develop technologies to be utilised by future Japanese communication spacecraft. It is part of Japan's i-Space program, and is to be operated by JAXA and NICT.
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Famous quotes containing the word winds:
“But the best I’ve known
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.”
—Rupert Brooke (1887–1915)
“My lute, be as thou wert when thou didst grow
With thy green mother in some shady grove,
When immelodious winds but made thee move,
And birds their ramage did on thee bestow.”
—William Drummond, of Hawthornden (1585–1649)
“And such the trust that still were mine,
Though stormy winds swept o’er the brine,
Or though the tempest’s fiery breath
Roused me from sleep to wreck and death.
In ocean cave, still safe with Thee
The germ of immortality!
And calm and peaceful shall I sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.”
—Emma Hart Willard (1787–1870)