After Nearly a Decade in Development, Japan's New Rocket Fails in Debut
Japan's science minister said the failure was "extremely regrettable:
The launch of Japan's H3 rocket on Tuesday morning failed after the vehicle's second stage engine did not ignite.
In a terse statement on the failure, Japanese space agency JAXA said, "A destruct command has been transmitted to H3 around 10:52 a.m. (Japan Standard Time), because there was no possibility of achieving the mission. We are confirming the situation."
The Japanese space agency, in concert with the rocket's manufacturer, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, has spent about $1.5 billion developing the H3 rocket over the last decade. Much of the challenge in building the new rocket involved development of a new LE-9 engine, which is fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, to power the first stage. This appeared to perform flawlessly. The second-stage engine that failed, the LE-5B, was a more established engine.
The country has sought to increase its share of the commercial launch market by building a lower-cost alternative to its older H2-A vehicle to more effectively compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster. Mitsubishi's goal was to sell the H3 at $51 million per launch in its base configuration. This would allow the company to supplement its launches of institutional missions for the Japanese government with commercial satellites. Tuesday's debut flight of the H3 rocket carried the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-3 for the Japanese government. It was lost.
[...] The failure is just the latest challenge for the H3 rocket. A fundamental problem with the booster is that, even if it were to fly safely, the H3 rocket has no clear advantages over the Falcon 9, which now has a streak of more than 170 consecutive successful launches. The new H3 rocket is also fully expendable, unlike the Falcon 9 and many newer boosters in development in the United States and China.
Japan Forced to Destroy Flagship H3 Rocket in Failed Launch
Japan forced to destroy flagship H3 rocket in failed launch:
The H3 rocket is the first medium-lift rocket designed by Japan in three decades.
It has been presented as a cheaper alternative to SpaceX's Falcon 9 for launching commercial and government satellites into Earth's orbit.
On Tuesday, engineers had aimed to send the 57m (187ft) rocket into space with a monitoring satellite on board. The ALOS-3 system is capable of detecting North Korean missile launches.
[...] Japan had presented the H3 as a viable commercial alternative to the Falcon 9 rocket because the H3 ran on a lower-cost engine with 3D-printed parts.
Had the mission succeeded, Jaxa said it had planned to launch the H3 around six times a year for the next two decades.
Japan is deepening cooperation with the US in space and has committed to carrying cargo to the planned Gateway lunar space station - which Nasa plans to deploy to the moon's orbit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @10:10AM
So, is it fair to say that the satellite was... A LOSS(-3)?
Ba-dum tss!
Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 08, @12:30PM (2 children)
My buddy, Murphy, said he was going to Japan to watch the launch. He claims to be famous for creating some laws, or something like that. All I know is, when he walks near, things go to shit.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @02:32AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 09, @07:52AM
The first place he had to go was the airport.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @12:55PM (2 children)
I thought my country, the United States of America, was the leader of doing really expensive things to try to save a buck.
An aerospace company I used to work for laid off several man-centuries worth of experienced engineers, technicians, and assemblers, and all our equipment and test jigs at the end of a contract.
Oh gawd, what a waste.
But, something good came of it. Space-X.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08, @03:39PM (1 child)
How long before Elon is negotiating with Japan on "government incentives" to clone his SpaceX production line in Japan?
Alternatively, as SpaceX moves to bigger boosters and engines, perhaps moving the smaller rocket production to Japan would be an option--to clear out some space in the Hawthorne plant.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday March 08, @08:39PM
International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) would likely prevent or at least bog that down.
There are multiple companies developing partially and fully reusable rockets. The technology will be widespread eventually.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Wednesday March 08, @05:09PM (2 children)
How many NASA rockets have blown up? Russian rockets? Space-X rockets? How many Japanese astronauts have died, like with Musk's space plane, or the Apollo fire, or Challenger, or the myriad Russian fatalities, half of which they've kept secret?
This is business as usual. "It ain't rocket science"? But it is, and rocket science ain't easy.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday March 08, @08:40PM
Richard Branson's space plane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSS_Enterprise_crash [wikipedia.org]
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(Score: 2) by corey on Wednesday March 08, @10:47PM
Yep, that’s what I was thinking. It took the Russians and Americans decades of multiple failures to get it right. Doesn’t really explain the newcomers, Blue Origin,SpaceX etc but they may have employed ex NASA people who Carrie’s across the lessons learnt. Not to say they also didn’t fail because they did and still do.
I’ma little surprised because I think (rightly or wrongly) that Japanese engineering is awesome. They should not be so hard on themselves, just go by the mantra that the Americans have: embrace failures but learn from them. Test a lot too.