The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity

214 JAS (Japanese Amateur Satellite)
for example, have no other designations. In this book, all
NASDA missions are identified by their English names
and all successfully launched ISAS missions by their
Japanese names.
JAS (Japanese Amateur Satellite)
Small (50-kg) satellites launched by NASDA (National
Space Development Agency) as co-passengers with larger
payloads, for use in amateur radio communications. (See
table, “JAS Launches.”)
JAS Launches
Launch site: Tanegashima; orbit: polar LEO
Launch
Spacecraft Date Vehicle
JAS-1B (Fuji-2) Feb. 17, 1970 H-1
JAS-2 (Fuji-3) Aug. 17, 1996 H-2
Jason
Joint CNES (the French space agency) and JPL ( Jet
Propulsion Laboratory) oceanography missions that
build on the success of TOPEX/Poseidon and form part
of NASA’s EOS (Earth Observing System). Jason-1 was
launched on December 11, 2001, alongside TIMED
(which see for launch details). Its instruments map variations
in ocean surface topography as small as 2 to 5 vertical
cm to monitor world ocean circulation, study
interactions of the oceans and atmosphere, help improve
climate predictions, and observe events like El Niño. The
satellite was named after Jason of Greek mythology—an
adventurer fascinated by the sea.
If global warming continues to increase, the polar icecaps
will lose more and more of their mass to the oceans,
adding volumes of seawater potentially great enough to
swallow islands and permanently flood coastal areas.
Jason-2, scheduled for launch in 2004, will monitor this
transformation by resolving global sea-level variations as
small as one mm per year.
Jastrow, Robert (1925–)
A distinguished American space scientist. Jastrow earned
a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Columbia University
in 1948 and carried out further research at the Institute
for Advanced Studies, Princeton, and the University of
California, Berkeley, before becoming an assistant professor
at Yale (1953–1954). He then served on the staff at
the Naval Research Laboratory (1954–1958) before
being appointed chief of the theoretical division of the
Goddard Space Flight Center and then director of the
Goddard Institute of Space Studies in 1961, a post he
held for 20 years. Subsequently, he was appointed professor
of earth sciences at Dartmouth College. Jastrow’s
work has ranged across nuclear physics, plasma physics,
geophysics, and the physics of the Moon and terrestrial
planets.
JAWSAT
A payload adapter developed jointly by the U.S. Air
Force and Weber State University, Utah. It was first used
operationally on January 26, 2000, when it was carried
into orbit by a Minotaur launcher and then released several
microsatellites, including FalconSat (an experimental
satellite built by the Air Force Academy), ASUSat, and
Opal.
JERS (Japanese Earth Resources Satellite)
A Japanese Earth observation satellite launched by
NASDA (National Space Development Agency); also
known by the national name Fuyo. Following on the success
of MOS, JERS tested the performance of optical
sensors and a synthetic aperture radar and made observations
for use in land survey, agriculture, forestry, fishery,
environmental preservation, disaster prevention, and
coastal surveillance. Some of its data were shared with
the University of Alaska for research purposes.
Launch
Date: February 11, 1992
Vehicle: H-1
Site: Tanegashima
Orbit: 567 × 568 km × 97.7°
Size: 3.1 × 1.8 m
Mass: 1,340 kg
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
See JPL.
jet steering
The use of fixed or movable gas jets on a missile to steer
it along a desired trajectory during propelled and coasting
flight.
jetavator
A control surface that may be moved into or against a
rocket’s jet stream to change the direction of the jet flow
for thrust vector control.
Jikiken
A Japanese satellite, launched by ISAS (Institute of Space
and Astronautical Science), that made measurements of
ionized gases and electric fields in Earth’s magnetosphere