2024-02-15 02:41:43
Japan will try once more this weekend to launch its new flagship rocket, the H3, in a bid to revive its space program following the rocket’s failed maiden flight last year derailed exploration plans for the satellites and planets.
Coupled with last month’s historic SLIM moon landing, a successful H3 rocket launch would demonstrate Japan’s space capabilities to its close ally the United States as a counterweight to China’s military and technological might. .
“For Japan, the success of the H3 is crucial to prove to the world that it is capable of continuously launching satellites,” said Kazuto Suzuki, a professor at the University of Tokyo specializing in space policy. “Making a good spacecraft doesn’t make sense if you can’t launch it on a rocket.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to launch its second H3 on Saturday from its Tanegashima space center in southern Japan. JAXA delayed the launch by two days to avoid strong winds and thunderstorms.
Developed by JAXA and prime contractor Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the H3 rocket was supposed to replace the two-decade-old H-IIA rocket and cut launch costs in half to five billion yen (33 .2 million dollars).
But during the H3’s first flight in March, ground control destroyed the rocket in mid-flight because the second stage engine failed to ignite. In a report released in October, JAXA listed three possible power outages, but might not identify the direct cause.
The two recent launches of the H-IIA rocket, which experienced no problems, have raised hopes for the second attempt of the H3 rocket, Masayuki Eguchi, director of Mitsubishi’s defense and space division, said last month Heavy.
The H-IIA has been successfully launched 47 of 48 times since 2001, but JAXA will remove it from service following two more launches.
The failure of the H3’s first flight led to the loss of a 28 billion yen Earth observation satellite, ALOS-3. The failures of the H3 and another small rocket, Epsilon, led to considerable delays in Japanese satellite launches.
Saturday’s H3 rocket carries a 2.6-ton dumbbell-shaped dummy mass simulating the payload of a satellite. Two Earth observation microsatellites, one from Canon Electronics and the other from Seiren, are carried as secondary payloads. THE LANDSCAPE HAS RADICALLY CHANGED
JAXA’s 63 m (297 ft) H3 rocket can carry a payload of 6.5 tonnes into space, more than the 6 tonne maximum payload of the H-IIA rocket, and fly more cheaply in adopting simpler structures and automotive-grade electronic components. Launch operator Mitsubishi Heavy hopes to launch six H3s per year once production stabilizes.
Ensuring independent and cheap access to space is the main mission of the H3, as Japan considers increasingly ambitious space plans with more frequent launches. The H3 is also responsible for carrying a lunar lander for the joint Japan-India LUPEX project and a cargo craft for the US-led Artemis lunar exploration program.
Another goal is to secure orders from international customers, as requests for satellite launches have exploded thanks to affordable commercial vehicles such as SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9. The European Space Agency also plans to launch its lower-cost Ariane 6 rocket for the first time this year, following last month’s successful maiden flight of the Vulcan rocket from United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin .
“The landscape has changed dramatically in the decade since we began developing H3,” Masashi Okada, JAXA’s H3 project director, said at a press conference Tuesday.
Okada said the H3 might meet growing demand for launch vehicles, but would require “diverse and ongoing efforts” to adapt to market needs and competition.
Unlike SpaceX’s agile development process centered on frequent test flights, the Japanese engineering style focuses on eliminating errors, which led to the 11-month hiatus following the H3 launch failure , said Ko Ogasawara, a professor at Tokyo University of Science and a former aerospace engineer at Mitsubishi Heavy.
“It may seem slow… but we are taking the most reliable route with minimal resources,” Mr. Ogasawara said.
In the small rocket market, Tokyo-based startup Space One will launch its Kairos on March 9, while JAXA has been unable to schedule the first launch of the new Epsilon S. Kairos hopes to mark the second series of Japanese commercial rockets to reach space following Interstellar Technologies’ MOMO in 2019. ($1 = 150.5000 yen) (Reporting by Kantaro Komiya; Writing by Gerry Doyle)
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