Category Archives: Vlab News

GEO-KOMPSAT-2A satellite successfully launched

Posted on December 5, 2018 by luciane
GK-2A

GK-2A was launched into space aboard Ariane 5, from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

GEO-KOMPSAT-2A (GK-2A), a South Korean geostationary meteorological satellite, was successfully launched from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on the evening  of Tuesday the 4th of December 2018.

Covering the Asia-Pacific region, GK-2A is designed to conduct meteorological and space weather monitoring missions.

The AMI (Advanced Meteorological Imager), the payload for the meteorological mission of GK-2A, is comparable to those of the AHI (Advanced Himawari Imager) and ABI (Advanced Baseline Imager) onboard Himawari-8/9 and GOES-16/17, respectively.

GK-2A is also equipped with KSEM (Korean Space Weather Monitoring) instrument package, which will be used to monitor the near-Earth space weather conditions that affect a number of human activities.

You can watch this successful launch below.

Open Online Course on Monitoring Atmospheric Composition

Posted on November 5, 2018 by luciane

EUMETSAT and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service/ECMWF are running an open online course on Monitoring Atmospheric Composition, starting on Monday 5 November 2018.

The course, which runs over five weeks, will give participants the chance to discover the space, air, and ground-based technologies used to monitor and forecast air quality around the globe. Data availability and access will be explained. Participants will also explore the critical threats affecting the atmosphere and its composition, how these affect human health, climate change, and ecosystems.

Registration at https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/atmospheric-composition

Himawari-8 Conducts First Target Area Observation in Response to International User Request

Posted on October 18, 2018 by luciane

True Color Reproduction imagery taken during Himawari-8 Target Area observation requested by Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.

JMA’s Himawari-8 meteorological satellite began conducting on-demand Target Area (TA) observation around Darwin in northern Australia at 06:30 UTC on 15 October 2018 in response to a request made by Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).

This is the first operation of its kind to be performed under the new HimawariRequest service.

JMA expects the HimawariRequest service to support disaster risk reduction activities in the region based on the monitoring of extreme events such as tropical cyclones and volcanic eruptions.

Follow the link below to learn more about this first operation and JMA’s new international service HimawariRequest

http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/jma-eng/satellite/news/himawari89/20181017_HimawariRequest_FirstOperation.pdf