One of the world's largest geostationary satellites has developed a glitch in an experimental telecommunications system, authorities said Friday.
Launched in December, the Japanese research satellite Kiku No. 8 is designed to be a platform for testing various telecommunications systems and other experiments.
Geostationary satellites orbit the Earth by staying over a fixed point, usually to provide telecommunications services to a particular area.
Earlier this week, however, one of the experimental telecommunications systems apparently developed a problem when officials tried to power it up, the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology said.
Officials from NICT have not yet been able to determine if the system's power supply is working properly, spokesman Masato Tanaka said.
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