Engineering Test Satellite-V(ETS-V) and Experiments of Mobile Satellite Communication

ENGINEERING TEST SATELLITE V (ETS-V) is the first Japanese three-axis stabilized geostationary satellite of 550kg class. The development objectives of ETS-V are the verification of the H-I launch vehicle, the establishment of key technologies for three-axis-stabilized satellite bus, test of new technologies for the future application satellite and mobile communication experiments.

ETS-V was launched on Aug 27, 1987 and was positioned on geostationary orbit at 150°E on Sept. 17.

This article reviews the outline of the ETS-V system, bus components and the plan of mobile communication experiments using ETS-V.