The launch came two months after North Korea angered Japan by test-firing seven missiles and amid new concern that the communist state may be planning to test a nuclear bomb.

The rocket carrying the H-2A satellite was launched at 1:35 pm (0435 GMT) from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Kagoshima prefecture, a space agency spokeswoman said.

"I feel great," said Kunihiro Oda, head of the Cabinet Office's satellite intelligence office.

"I'm glad deeply from my heart because we have accomplished the goal of gaining the ability to photograph many locations once a day," he told reporters.

The satellite got into the orbit "about 16 minutes after liftoff," the space agency spokeswoman added.

Outgoing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who has promoted closer military ties with Washington due to concerns over North Korea, welcomed the successful launch.

"I hope Japan as an advanced nation in space technology will continue making progress in development in this area," Koizumi said on a visit to Finland.

Tokyo drafted the plan to launch four spy satellites -- two of them optical and the two radar -- after North Korea shocked the world in 1998 by test-firing a long-range Taepodong-1 missile over Japan.

The first pair was successfully sent into space in March 2003. But in November that year, Japan had to destroy a third spy satellite 10 minutes after liftoff.

The optical satellite launched Monday travels on a polar orbit at an altitude of about 400 to 600 kilometers (250 and 370 miles), said an official from the intelligence office.

With the new satellite in space, Tokyo is now capable of photographing any location in the world at least once during a day, the intelligence office said.

The space agency plans to launch the second radar satellite, for photographing at night and in bad weather, early next year.

"This plan is to ensure safety and defend ourselves from foreign countries," said a spokesman from the intelligence office.

"But it will also be used generally for grand-scale catastrophes and is not directly linked to the specific issue of North Korea and its missile launches," he added.

North Korea in July test-fired seven missiles including a new version of its Taepodong sparking international condemnation and a rebuke from the United Nations.

The 2003 failure was due to problems with the rocket booster.

"It was the problem with the rocket," said the space agency's spokeswoman. "The booster dragged the rocket off the initially planned track, so the satellite had to be destroyed."

The humiliation came one month after China, Japan's growing neighbor and sometimes competitor, became the third country to put a human in space.

Japan suspended satellite launches for more than a year after the disaster. Its satellites put into orbit since 2005 have been primarily to monitor the weather and natural disasters -- also a function of the latest satellite.

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