ITT will design imaging systems for two Japanese geostationary satellites that will provide round-the-clock weather forecasts and severe weather alerts for eastern Asia and Oceania.

The satellites, Himawari-8 and Himawari-9, being built by Mitsubishi Electric for the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA), are part of the Japanese geostationary meteorological satellite series.

The satellites are part of the world weather watch project within the World Meteorological Organisation.

The imaging systems for the Himawari satellite will be based on the advanced baseline imager being developed for the geostationary operational environmental satellite-R-series (GOES-R).

This imager is capable of monitoring three times the number of atmospheric conditions than existing payloads, and creates enhanced imagery data for severe weather analysis and forecast every 30 seconds.

Himawari-8 is due for launch in 2014 and Himawari-9 in 2016.