Tens of thousands of Japanese citizens gathered at the National Diet Building in Tokyo on Tuesday to protest against the Takaichi administration's recent moves undermining the country's pacifist constitution.
Protesters held signs with slogans calling for the protection of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, opposing its revision, and demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
Some protesters expressed strong concerns over the government's recent actions, including lifting the ban on lethal weapons export, significantly increasing defense spending, and initiating revisions to the Three Non-Nuclear Principles.
Japan's Constitution, which took effect in 1947, is often referred to as a pacifist constitution, as Article 9 states that the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of a nation, which will not threaten or use force to settle international disputes.
The Three Non-Nuclear Principles, not possessing, not producing and not allowing the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japanese territory, were first declared in the Diet, Japan's parliament, by then Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in 1967 and viewed as a national credo.
Apart from Tokyo, rallies were also held in other parts of Japan on the same day against the Takaichi government's moves.
Thousands rally in Tokyo against Takaichi's constitutional revision, military expansion
Researchers from China and Europe have achieved a landmark collaboration in space science as the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) was successfully launched Tuesday aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.
The satellite, a joint mission between the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the European Space Agency (ESA), is aimed at studying space weather and its effects on Earth. It will use soft X-ray imaging technology to provide a global view of the large-scale structure of Earth's magnetosphere for the first time.
Following its launch, the satellite was confirmed to have entered its planned orbit, with its solar arrays successfully deployed and systems operating normally.
"The SMILE satellite is the first to conduct panoramic imaging of Earth's magnetosphere. The satellite is in a highly elliptical orbit, with one orbit taking approximately 50 hours, during which more than 40 hours are spent photographing and observing at apogee," Said Dai Lei, chief designer of SMILE's science application system at the National Space Science Center of CAS.
"The primary scientific objective is to perform global imaging of the large-scale structures in Earth's space environment using soft X-ray and ultraviolet bands, revealing the processes and evolutionary patterns of solar wind-magnetosphere interaction," said Li Huawang, chief designer of SMILE at the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites of CAS (IAMCAS).
SMILE was first proposed in 2015, marking the first mission-level deep collaboration between CAS and ESA.
Scientists have installed four scientific payloads on the SMILE satellite. ESA is in charge of the payload module, while the platform module is under the responsibility of CAS.
To reach higher orbit, the engineers had to reduce the weight of the structure part. They updated their designs and structures to make the best use of the material and function of the satellite.
"From system concepts to engineering reality, I evolved with this project," said Liu Bang, deputy attitude control designer of SMILE at IAMCAS.
The mission is expected to deliver a series of scientific breakthroughs in areas including space weather forecasting and the fundamental understanding of magnetospheric physics.
SMILE satellite represents milestone in China-Europe space cooperation
