Japan Launches First Environmental Satellite

Japan launched a satellite Tuesday that will monitor weather patterns and changes in the Earth’s surface, such as destruction of the Amazon rain forest, a national space agency spokesman said.

The Japan Earth Resources Satellite-1, its first environmental survey satellite, was hurled 353 miles aloft from the Tanegashima space center in the ninth launching of an an H-1 rocket, and will circle earth once every 44 days for two years.