A US-built space surveillance payload has successfully reached orbit aboard Japan’s QZS-7 navigation satellite, completing the launch phase of a joint US-Japan national security space initiative.QZS-7 was launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan on an H3 rocket. The spacecraft carried the second of two US-developed sensors being deployed through the bilateral program.The two surveillance payloads are hosted on Japanese satellites but will be operated by the US Space Force. Their primary purpose is to collect near-real-time information on objects operating in geosynchronous orbit over the Indo-Pacific region.The collected information will be transmitted to the US Space Surveillance Network, strengthening American awareness of activity in a strategically important orbital region. Geosynchronous orbit, approximately 35,800 kilometers above Earth, contains many communications and missile-warning satellites.US Space Force Mission Delta 2, responsible for space-domain awareness activities, will operate the payload from a command-and-control facility at Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado.The initiative originated from a US-Japan agreement signed in December 2020 covering the development, integration, launch, and operation of the two American payloads on Japanese satellites.The sensors were developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, while Mitsubishi Electric built the Japanese satellite platforms and participated in integration and testing.The partnership demonstrates increasing cooperation between Washington and Tokyo in space-based surveillance. Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System already supplements GPS services across the Asia-Pacific region, providing an additional foundation for cooperation in the space domain.With both US surveillance payloads now deployed, the program is expected to improve monitoring of the increasingly contested geosynchronous environment and support broader space-domain awareness efforts in the Indo-Pacific.
