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After Nearly a Decade in Development, Japan’s New Rocket Fails in Debut
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After nearly a decade in development, Japan’s new rocket fails in debut [arstechnica.com]:
The launch of Japan's H3 rocket on Tuesday morning, local time in Tanegashima, failed after the vehicle's second stage engine did not ignite.
In a terse statement on the failure, Japanese space agency JAXA said [global.jaxa.jp], "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.
Japanese officials expressed dissatisfaction after the rocket's failure. Japan's minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Science, Keiko Nagaoka, said [kyodonews.net] the launch failure was "extremely regrettable." She added that a task force will work with JAXA to "promptly and thoroughly" determine what caused the failure.
During a post-launch news conference, JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa apologized for "failing to meet the public's expectations." He promised the agency would "devote itself to finding out the cause of the issue and restoring public trust." It was not clear how long the H3 program would stand down to investigate the failure and identify a solution.
These comments reflect the pride Japan takes in its launch program, which is decades old and has a fine safety record.
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.
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Japan Forced to Destroy Flagship H3 Rocket in Failed Launch
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Japan forced to destroy flagship H3 rocket in failed launch [bbc.com]:
Japan was forced to blow up its new rocket during a failed launch on Tuesday, setting back efforts to crack a market led by Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Its space agency had to send a self-destruct command to the H3 rocket when its second-stage engine failed minutes after lift-off.
Observers say it is a significant setback for Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa).
The government called the test failure "extremely regrettable".
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.
But Jaxa said soon after launch, engineers were forced to send a self-destruct prompt to the H3 after it experienced "reduced velocity" in the second stage of its launch.
Tuesday's launch came after an aborted launch in February, when the rocket failed to get off the launch pad due to faulty rocket boosters.
"Unlike the previous cancellation and postponement, this time it was a complete failure," Hirotaka Watanabe, a space policy professor at Osaka University told Reuters.
"This will have a serious impact on Japan's future space policy, space business and technological competitiveness," he added.
Japan's science minister Keiko Nagaoka said authorities would investigate the cause of the engine failure.
She apologised for "failing to meet the expectations of the public and related parties" and described the development as "extremely regrettable".
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 [bbc.co.uk] - which Nasa plans to deploy to the moon's orbit.
Tokyo's broader space programme also involves sending people to the moon again, including Japanese astronauts.
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