On December 20, 2016 at 11:00 UTC the Epsilon (F2) rocket-carrier was launched from the Uchinoura Space Center situated close to the town of Kimotsuki, in Kagoshima Prefecture on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. The rocket orbited the ERG (Energization and Radiation in Geospace) satellite. It is a research satellite to repeatedly fly through the Van Allen belts high above Earth, helping scientists sort out how chaotic geomagnetic storms form and evolve and potentially endanger astronauts, spacecraft and infrastructure vital to life on the ground.