TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Japan\u2019s H3 rocket returned to flight Friday with the debut of a new low-cost variant, a badly needed success for the country’s new flagship rocket that has struggled with mission failures while facing an increasingly competitive space industry.<\/p>\n
The H3 rocket took off from the Tanegashima Space Center on a southwestern Japanese island Friday morning and its second stage successfully reached a targeted orbit, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said during its livestreaming. <\/p>\n
Six small satellites developed by universities and other organizations carried by the vehicle also were believed to be successfully separated, JAXA said.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s mission marked the debut for the H3’s new \u201c30 configuration\u201d equipped with triple liquid-fuel LE-9 engines and no rocket boosters, which is intended to be a low-cost version making the series more competitive. The variant is one of three designed to accommodate a wide range of customer needs. <\/p>\n
The sixth successful launch comes after two failures for the new model that replaced the mainstay H-2A, which had a near-perfect success record. <\/p>\n
The H3 rocket is designed to be more cost effective in the global space market dominated by Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX. Japan sees a stable, commercially competitive transport capability as key to its space program and national security. <\/p>\n
During its debut flight in March 2023, the H3 failed to ignite its second-stage engine. Then in December, the rocket launched with a navigation satellite but failed to put the payload into a planned orbit due to a malfunctioning second-stage engine. <\/p>\n
The H3 had been grounded since December and a third failure on Friday would have been a major blow to Japan\u2019s future space projects, including a Mars mission planned for 2028. A smaller Epsilon S series also has been delayed since it caught fire during a test in 2024.<\/p>\n
JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which are co-developing the rocket, hope eventually to launch H3 six to eight times annually.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Japan\u2019s H3 rocket returned to flight Friday with the debut of a new low-cost variant,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1530,10527,1532,1529,8],"class_list":["post-39313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-ap-business","tag-ap-technology","tag-ap-world-news","tag-associated-press","tag-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}