page_title: Advanced Land Observation Satellite
section_title: Decommissioning
hierarchical_section_title: Advanced Land Observation Satellite / Decommissioning
caption_attribution_description: English: Screen grab from the PreviSat program showing the orbits of the ALOS Daichi satellite. Shows Toronto, Canada as the "home" location.
context_page_description: Advanced Land Observing Satellite, also called Daichi, is a 4-ton Japanese satellite launched in 2006. After five years of service, the satellite lost power and ceased communication with Earth, but remains in orbit.
context_section_description: In April 2011, the satellite was found to have switched itself into power-saving mode due to deterioration of its solar arrays.  Technicians could no longer confirm that any power was being generated. It was suggested that meteoroids may have struck ALOS, creating the anomaly which eventually led to its shutdown.
  On 12 May 2011, JAXA sent a command to the satellite to power down its batteries and declared it dead in orbit.
caption: Satellite orbital paths, as of October 2013.
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