The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, successfully launched an H3 rocket carrying the Michibiki No. 7 positioning satellite from its Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture at 4:23 a.m. Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The satellite reached its planned orbit about 30 minutes later.<\/p>\n
The No. 9 rocket was the first H3 unit carrying a practical-use satellite since a launch failure last December. Tuesday\u2019s success means that seven out of the nine H3 units have been successfully launched.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made improvements with a determination not to fail again and were able to conduct a launch with enhanced reliability. As a result, we\u2019ve achieved a good outcome,\u201d Makoto Arita, JAXA\u2019s H3 project manager, told a news conference after the launch.<\/p>\n
The Michibiki is Japan\u2019s version of GPS, complementing the U.S. GPS satellite network and enabling positioning with a precision of up to several centimeters. The Michibiki No. 1 satellite was launched in 2010.<\/p>\n
The government aims to establish a system of seven Michibiki satellites that will allow constant positioning without the need to be complemented by foreign positioning satellites. The system will be expanded to 11 satellites eventually.<\/p>\n
However, following the loss of the Michibiki No. 5 satellite due to the H3 launch failure last December, six satellites will be operational for now, including the No. 7 unit launched this time.<\/p>\n
The Michibiki No. 7 satellite is about 19 meters wide when its solar panels are deployed. In addition to positioning services, it can distribute emergency information to compatible devices during disasters.<\/p>\n
The H3 is a two-stage liquid-propellant rocket developed by JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.<\/p>\n
After the failure of the No. 8 unit last December, JAXA identified the cause as a problem with a parts-joining process for the satellite-mounting section.<\/p>\n
After resolving the problem, JAXA successfully launched the No. 6 rocket in June this year. The reliability of the No. 9 rocket was enhanced by adopting a method for joining parts with proven track records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, successfully launched an H3 rocket carrying the Michibiki No. 7 positioning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[28873,8,1878,46405,29811,14568,458],"class_list":["post-72061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-h3","tag-japan","tag-jaxa","tag-michibki","tag-mitsubishi-heavy","tag-rockets","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72061","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=72061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}