On October 7, the first day of CEATEC JAPAN 2014, the Himawari-8 weather satellite was successfully launched from the Tanegashima Space Center and put into fixed orbit using the H-IIA launch vehicle No.25.

The Japan Meteorological Agency’s Himawari-8 satellite was developed and manufactured based on the “DS 2000″ standard satellite platform, a platform created by Mitsubishi Electric through improvements to its communications and engineering test satellites. This satellite is slated to go into actual service from 2015 once its functionality has been tested and confirmed.

Requiring lightweight and strong design to deal with extremes of cold and heat, this is a prototype carbon fiber molded fan (black fan, white fan is aluminum). The carbon fiber fan is around 1/4 to 1/5 the weight of aluminum fan, and is strong enough to withstand rotation at 3 times the speed.

As well an exhibition relating to the Himawari satellite, the Mitsubishi Electric booth presented exhibits on the “Daichi-2″ Advanced Land Observing Satellite used to observe the Hiroshima landslide disaster in August and Mt. Ontake eruption in September, the Michibiki Quasi-Zenith Satellite with radically improved satellite positioning accuracy developed in Japan, the TurkSat 4A communications satellite delivered to Turkish national communications company Turksat, as well as presentations on the company’s strengths in optical (the Subaru telescope) and radio telescope arrays (ALMA jointly operated by the National Astronomy Observatory and US and European agencies).
These presentations appeal to the wide ranging usefulness of space technology from the cutting edge of science through to everyday living.