With the developing and changing technology, countries continue to embark on a space hegemony adventure. While countries such as Russia, USA, China and India are on the way for a space competition. They also gain a strategic advantage in this race.

Japan will launch its eighth Intelligence Gathering System (IGS) reconnaissance satellite into space on Jan. 27.

Japanese satellite and space industry giant Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has announced that an MHI H-IIA satellite launch vehicle will send Japan’s eighth Intelligence Gathering System (IGS) reconnaissance satellite into orbit from the Tanegashima Space Centre in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwest Japan, on 27 January 2020.

The IGS satellite will carry an electro-optical camera and will join seven other IGS satellites already in orbit. Japan currently operates five high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging and two electro-optical IGS satellites that monitor military activities by North Korea and China.

Japan also uses the IGS satellites to monitor Russian military activities given Tokyo’s longstanding territorial dispute with Moscow over the Kuril Islands, also known as the Northern Territories, to the north of Japan and off the coast of Russia’s the Far East.

 IGS satellites provide Tokyo with strategic early warning of North Korean, Chinese, and Russian activities, as well as a useful defence diplomacy tool for sharing its intelligence with allies such as the United States in return for American intelligence Japan might find otherwise more challenging to obtain.