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.
Read more about Winds.
Famous quotes containing the word winds:
“Death is another milestone on their way.
With laughter on their lips and with winds blowing round them
They record simply
How this one excelled all others in making driving belts.”
—Stephen Spender (1909–1995)
“Since I was not bewitched in adolescence
And brought to love,
I will attend to the trees and their gracious silence,
To winds that move.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,
And the winds that blow through the starry ways,
Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood
Cover over and hide, for he has no part
With the lonely, majestical multitude.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)