TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Japan’s experimental reusable rocket took off and safely landed in a first test flight Saturday as the country seeks to achieve the technology key to cut launch costs and compete in the global space market dominated by SpaceX.<\/p>\n
The RV-X rocket lifted off, hovered and moved horizontally before landing during its less than one-minute flight at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency\u2019s Noshiro Testing Center in northeastern Japan, which was livestreamed by the NVS, a group of space fans. <\/p>\n
JAXA is expected to explain the results in an online briefing later Saturday.<\/p>\n
Japan seeks to catch up with the technology Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX has been using for several years to cut launch costs of delivering payloads into space.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s flight is a step forward for Japan in achieving the technology needed to develop a lower cost successor to the country\u2019s current mainstay, single-use H3 series.<\/p>\n
The flight comes one day after state media in China reported the country achieved its first successful recovery of the first stage of a rocket after a liftoff.<\/p>\n
Japan’s H3 rocket is designed to be more cost effective than its predecessor H-2A series, which had a near-perfect success record, but still needs further cost cuts to compete in the global space market.<\/p>\n
The Japanese government says a stable, commercially competitive transport capability is key to the country’s space program and national security.<\/p>\n
JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries have been co-developing the RV-X, which is 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) in diameter and 7.3 meters (23.9 feet) long and equipped with engines with enhanced durability and four shock-absorption landing gear. <\/p>\n
JAXA, which is jointly developing reusable rockets with France and Germany, plans to send the RV-X rocket to a higher altitude of about 100 meters (218 feet) in future test flights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO (AP) \u2014 Japan’s experimental reusable rocket took off and safely landed in a first test flight Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1530,25072,10527,1532,1529,8,33],"class_list":["post-56540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-ap-business","tag-ap-science","tag-ap-technology","tag-ap-world-news","tag-associated-press","tag-japan","tag-nihon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56540","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=56540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}