Japan’s space agency said on Friday its planned launch this weekend of a satellite on its new flagship H3 rocket will be postponed until Monday due to expected bad weather. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said it is postponing the launch because of rain and thunder predicted for Saturday night when the rocket was to be moved to the launch site at the Tanegashima Space Centre on a southwestern Japanese island.
The launch was initially scheduled for Sunday. The rocket will be carrying an Advanced Land Observation Satellite, ALOS-4, tasked primarily with Earth observation and data collection for disaster response and mapmaking, as well as with monitoring military activity, such as missile launches, with an infrared sensor developed by the Defence Ministry. The ALOS-4 is a successor to the current ALOS-2 and can observe a much wider area.
