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Japan Launches "Super-Speed" Internet Satellite
A number of readers wrote in about the launch this morning of a Japanese H-2A rocket carrying a Kizuna ("Winds") satellite into orbit. Kizuna is intended to provide "super high-speed data transmission" for Japan and Southeast Asia. The news stories on the launch, such as the AP's linked here, are short on technical detail. For example they say the satellite successfully achieved orbit 175 miles above the earth — hardly suitable for Internet communications to a specific area on the surface (remember Teledesic?). Reader nebulus4 provided a link to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency site with an illustration and a little more detail. Such as the fact that Kizuna is destined for geosync orbit, and that a 45-cm antenna will equip eventual users for 155 Mbps down / 6 Mbps up, whereas a 5-m antenna will allow enterprises and ISPs to tap into 1.2 Gbps down. Given the latency to geosync orbit, you probably wouldn't want to use Kizuna to play an online shooter.
175 miles is the separation altitude for the rocket. Satellites usually boost themselves to geostationary orbit. The Delta IV heavy can blast all the way to geostationary orbit but no-one can afford it.
The name of the satellite has been mistranslated: 'kizuna' () means bonds (as in 'family bonds') and not 'winds', which makes a lot more sense given the satellite's function.
I had thought the same thing, but that's not correct. If you look at the JAXA page on the nickname, Kizuna is the nickname and the official name is WINDS (spelled all uppercase) which is an acronym. It's very confusing though.
Too bad you're wrong, Mr. Troll: those phrases haven't been around for "cednturies [sic]." The phrase third world was coined by Alfred Sauvy in the 1950s. He also retroactively coined the words first world and second world to apply to already existent categorical differences between the Democratic West and the Communist East. I believe the phrase you confused with first world is the Old World. However, the Old World does not merely apply to the wealthy European nations, but all of Eurasia and Africa as well.