[SatNews] The launch pads at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima Island, Japan, are seen on Friday, Feb. 21, 2014, a week ahead of the planned launch of an H-IIA rocket carrying the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory.

Photo of the Tanegashima Space Center is courtesy of JAXA.

GPM is an international mission led by NASA and JAXA to measure rain and snowfall over most of the globe multiple times a day. To obtain a worldwide view of precipitation, multiple satellites will be contributing observations for a global data set, all unified by the advanced measurements of GPM's Core Observatory, built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Launch of the GPM Core Observatory from Tanegashima Space Center is scheduled for Thursday, February 27th during a window that starts at 1:07 p.m. EST (3:07 a.m. on Friday, February 28th, Japan time)