Japan successfully placed two satellites in different orbits Saturday morning, a first for the country and a feat it hopes will enable future launch costs to be reduced.

The H-2A rocket took off from the Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan at 10:26 a.m., carrying a climate research Shikisai satellite and a low altitude test satellite, named Tsubame. The satellites will travel in orbits at altitudes of 800 kilometers and lower than 300 km, respectively.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, working in conjunction with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., hopes that the successful launch will in future allow it to dispatch multiple satellites using one rocket. Up until now, each of the agency's satellites has been launched individually.

The H-2A rocket first released Shikisai into orbit before decelerating and moving to the lower altitude of around 480 km where Tsubame separated.

Shikisai will travel on a path that will see it return to the same orbit after a certain period, allowing it to investigate changes in water circulation and the mechanisms involved in climate change over a set time.

Tsubame, equipped with an ion engine which uses fuel more efficiently than gas jet propulsion, will maneuver into lower orbits of 300 km or below and be assessed for its ability to stably travel at low altitudes where atmospheric resistance is about 1,000 times greater than that experienced by most Earth observation satellites which travel at an altitude of 600 to 800 km.

When Tsubame reaches an altitude of 270 km some 15 months after launch, it will be tested to see whether it can maintain that altitude using its thrusters, with the goal to have it gradually descend to an altitude of 180 km.

Currently, orbits lower than 300 km are undeveloped and have yet to be fully utilized by satellites, according to JAXA.

Positioning a satellite in low orbit enables the possibility of capturing high-resolution images, among other potential functions.

JAXA hopes that having the capability to capture such images will be useful during natural disasters and in their aftermath.