*********** 041593A.SAT *********** Country: Japan Two Translations from Japanese about the problems with the Fuyo 1 earth resources monitoring equipment. In a previous message, which was basically a press release, the problems were smoothed over. In these articles there is concern about the quality control and the lowering of the commercial value of the product, which sells for 40,000 to 70,000 Yen (roughly $500 US) per picture. The Space Activities Commission was highly critical of the situation and particularly the ground testing as some of the problems were due to parts failure. The problem may be due to the division of responsibilities and turf battles as the Science and Technology Agency (STA), the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) as well as the Japanese Space Agency (NASDA) were involved in Fuyo 1, which was developed at a cost of 3 billion Yen. Concern also was mentioned over the up-coming ADEOS launch in 1996 which is a joint venture with the US and France, with the same mix of Japanese government agencies. Again it is interesting to note that these criticism come from Japanese language papers. None of this, other than the fact there were problems, appeared in the English or other foreign language releases to my knowledge. ************** END Msg. A.SAT **************