In October 1978 the Earth Observation Center (EOC) was opened in Hatoyama-machi, Hiki-gun, Saitama-ken for the establishment and development of satellite remote-sensing technology to allow observation of the earth and particularly to study the environment and its effects globally. At EOC data is receive daily from several earth observation satellites, processed by computers and recorded to various media such as CD-ROM and DVD-R. EOC provides the processed data to data users and researchers both inside and outside of Japan.
*The Service of DLT and 8mm tapes are terminated on June 11, 2007.
Now, data reception and processing from foreign satellites, such as the European Space Agency remote-sensing satellite: ERS, are performed. Moreover, data processing of the tropical rain observation satellite: TRMM which the United States and Japan developed jointly is also performed. Japan's contribution to the earth observation satellite family includes the are Marine Observation Satellite: MOS-1 ('peach No. 1'), Earth Resources Satellite: JERS-1 ('Fuyo No.1'), and the ADvanced Earth Observing Satellite: ADEOS. The observation data is used many areas, such as environmental preservation, land use, sea investigation, resources investigation, disaster prevention, agricultural and forestry industries, and fishing.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is scheduled to launch the environmental observation technical satellite (ADEOS-II) in the 2002 fiscal year in cooperation with the United States (NASA) and France (CNES). International cooperation is indispensable to observation of the earth's environment, and this center is also contributing to the use and dissemination of observation data in cooperation with other space organizations in the worlds, such as NASA and CNES.
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