Himawari 8 was launched atop a H-IIA rocket flying from the Yoshinobu Launch Complex Pad 1 at the Tanegashima Space Center. The launch occurred at 05:16 UTC on 7 October 2014 and reached its operational geostationary orbit in October 2014, at 35,786 kilometers and 140.7 degrees East. Himawari 9, which is identical to Himawari 8, was launched on 2 November 2016 and placed in a stand-by orbit until 2022, when it is planned to succeed Himawari 8.
Purpose
The role of Himawari 8 is to provide typhoon, rainstorm, weather forecaset and other related reports for Japan, East Asia, and Western Pacific region. It is also responsible for ensuring the safety of ships, aviation and observing the environment of the earth.
Design
The DS2000 satellite bus has a lifespan of 15 years, however the expected operational lifespan of Himawari 8 is expected to be limited by its instruments which are only designed for 8 years of service. At launch, the mass of the satellite was about. Power is supplied by a single gallium arsenidesolar panel, which provides up to 2.6 kilowatts of power.
Instruments
The primary instrument aboard Himawari 8, the Advanced Himawari Imager, is a 16 channel multispectral imager to capture visible light and infrared images of the Asia-Pacific region. The instrument was designed and built by Exelis Geospatial Systems and has similar spectral and spatial characteristics to the Advanced Baseline Imager used in the American GOES-16, -17, -T, and -U satellites. The AHI can produce images with a resolution down to 500m and can provide full disk observations every 10 mins and images of Japan every 2.5 minutes. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology CEO Dr Rob Vertessy stated that Himawari 8 "generates about 50 times more data than the previous satellite". A recent study reported that Himawari-8 had acquired cloud-free observations every 4 days, while capturing the seasonal changes of vegetation in the cloud-prone region of Southeast Asia more accurately than before. Data recorded from the Japanese Himawari 8 will be made freely available for use by meteorological agencies in other countries. Its temporal and spatial resolution enables it to observe disastrous events in remote places, such as volcanic eruptions. The Himawari satellite was able to capture the Tianjin explosions in 2015.
Wavelength
Band number
Spatial resolution at SSP
Central wavelength
0.47
1
1
0.47063
0.51
2
1
0.51000
0.64
3
0.5
0.63914
0.86
4
1
0.85670
1.6
5
2
1.6101
2.3
6
2
2.2568
3.9
7
2
3.8853
6.2
8
2
6.2429
6.9
9
2
6.9410
7.3
10
2
7.3467
8.6
11
2
8.5926
9.6
12
2
9.6372
10.4
13
2
10.4073
11.2
14
2
11.2395
12.4
15
2
12.3806
13.3
16
2
13.2807
The Space Environmental Data Acquisition Monitor is the second instrument aboard Himawari 8, and it consists of two sensors: SEDA-e for detecting high energyelectrons and SEDA-p for detecting high energy protons. SEDA-e is a single element with 8 stacked charge collecting plates. It has an energy range of 0.2-4.5 MeV and a field of view of ±78.3°. SEDA-p consists of 8 separate proton telescope elements. In total SEDA-e has an energy range of 15-100 MeV and a field of view of ±39.35°. Both sensors have a time resolution of 10 seconds. The data from this instrument is transmitted to a ground station in Saitama, Japan with a Ka-band signal, and is ultimately provided to the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology for use monitoring space weather events along the Japanese meridian.
