Japan Launches Extra-High-Speed Broadband Satellite

After a week of delays, Japan launched a new, experimental Internet satellite on Saturday that shows why Japan is still so much farther ahead than the United States in terms of bandwidth.

The "Kizuna" satellite (the name, selected through a public nomination process, means "ties" or "bonds," in the sense of linking people together) is designed to give extremely high Internet speeds to rural and other areas that have been left off the country's already high-speed grid.

According to the project's Web site, ordinary home users will ultimately be able to get Net download speeds of 155 megabits per second (Mbps), with upload speeds of 6 Mbps. Businesses and other organizations using a larger receiver dish will be able to get connections of 1.2 gigabits per second.

The satellite has two antennae: one for Japan and its near region, and the other oriented to serve other Southeast Asian countries. The agency said on Monday that solar panels powering the satellite had deployed successfully.

That speed is a beautiful thing, all by itself. But it's the applications that it makes possible that are the real eye-opener. We've been talking and writing about them for years in the United States, but for the most part they remain the stuff of trial projects and columnists' speculation. This from Japan
Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Kizuna site:

For example, we will be able to contribute to "remote medicine" that enables everybody to receive sophisticated medical treatment regardless of time and location by transmitting clear images of the conditions of a patient to a doctor in an urban area from a remote area or island where few doctors are available. In academic and educational fields, schools and researchers in remote areas can exchange information easily. To help cope with disasters, information can be swiftly provided through space.

In my book, that's a positive use of space. Anyone talking weapons should pay a little closer attention to what's happening in Japan.
Launch Result of the KIZUNA (WINDS) by the H-IIA Launch Vehicle No. 14 [JAXA press release]

(Image: Still shot of a video of the Kizuna satellite, as recorded by JAXA. Credit: JAXA)