Japan’s ministry of transport lost its multi-functional Transport Satellite on November 15 when its H-II launcher suffered a first stage shut-down four minutes after lift-off. The 2.9 tonne MTSat-1 was built on a Space Systems/Loral FS-1300 platform, with a payload built by Alcatel Space. The value of the satellite was given as $95 million.

The payload included meteorological and navigation packages. The MTSat was also intended to carry mobile voice and data communications between civil aircraft and air traffic control towers. It was designed to form the basis of Japan’s Automatic Dependent Surveillance system (ADS) for trans-Pacific routes.

The loss of MTSat will put a crimp in Japanese/US plans to standardise GPS data for civil air navigation. Since the MTSat-2 satellite is not scheduled for launch until 2004, it could well result in Japan’s taking a keener interest in Europe’s Galileo project using a non-military dedicated civil satellite system.

Galileo will use ESA’s Artemis satellite as the third GEO navigation package platform. Artemis was set to fly, as part of a technology-sharing deal, on the first flight of Japan’s improved H-IIA launcher early next year.

However the H-IIA lost two weeks ago carried the first flight model of the new LE-5B engine for its second stage. This of course never got to fire. It is likely that ESA will insist on a flight demonstration prior to the Artemis mission, which could now suffer yet more delay.