JAXA’s second attempt to launch the H3 rocket ended up being a major setback for Japan’s space ambitions. Although the rocket was able to leave the launch pad, the country’s space authorities were forced to activate its flight termination system a few minutes after its second stage engine failed to fire. In an ad, Jaxa said the self-destruct command was transmitted to the rocket at 10:52 a.m. Japan time (8:52 p.m. ET) “because there was no chance of mission accomplishment.” The agency is still investigating the incident to find out what went wrong.
The H3 was built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries after the program was first approved in 2013 and cost the country more than 200 billion yen ($1.5 billion). JAXA hoped to launch the rocket in 2020, and it did so cComplete a functional test for the H3 that year, but had to delay its maiden flight due to engineering issues. Its first real launch attempt on February 17 this year was aborted before the vehicle could take off due to an electrical interference problem in the first stage.
According Nikkei Asia, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida considers the H3 to be “crucial to the nation’s commercial and national security ambitions.” It was created to put many more Japanese surveillance satellites into orbit and become the key component of a business that will offer launch services to customers. JAXA and Mitsubishi were apparently able to halve their original launch costs to $50 million, which they believed was lower than SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch costs. In the future, it is also expected to carry cargo to support the Lunar Gateway project of NASA’s Artemis program.
The destroyed H3 rocket was carrying ALOS-3, a satellite with disaster management tools that can be quickly deployed to observe affected areas. Reuters says it was also equipped with an experimental infrared sensor that was created with the ability to detect North Korean ballistic missile launches
