Japan's new flagship H3 rocket fails to put geolocation satellite into orbit

Japan's abstraction bureau says its H3 rocket has failed to spot a navigation outer into orbit

TOKYO -- Japan's abstraction bureau said its H3 rocket carrying a navigation outer failed to enactment the payload into a planned orbit, a setback for the country's caller flagship rocket and its abstraction motorboat program.

Monday's nonaccomplishment is the 2nd for Japan's caller flagship rocket aft its botched 2023 debut formation and six palmy flights.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the H3 rocket carrying the Michibiki 5 outer took disconnected from the Tanegashima Space Center connected a southwestern Japanese land Monday arsenic portion of Japan's plans to person a much precise determination positioning strategy of its own.

The rocket's second-stage motor pain unexpectedly had a premature cutoff and a consequent separation of the outer from the rocket could not beryllium confirmed, Masashi Okada, a JAXA enforcement and motorboat director, told a quality conference.

Whether the outer was released into abstraction oregon wherever it ended up is unknown, and that JAXA is investigating the information to find the origin and different details, Okada said.

Jun Kondo, an authoritative astatine the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, told reporters that the nonaccomplishment was “extremely regrettable” and that the authorities acceptable up a task unit to analyse the origin and instrumentality indispensable measures arsenic soon arsenic imaginable to “regain credibility.”

Monday's nonaccomplishment is simply a setback for Japan's caller flagship that replaced the earlier mainstay H-2A which had near-perfect occurrence record. It besides delays Japan’s outer motorboat plans, including 1 to person a much autarkic geolocation strategy for smartphones, maritime navigation and drones without relying connected the U.S. GPS system.

The H3 rocket is designed to beryllium much cost-competitive successful the planetary abstraction market. Japan sees a stable, commercially competitory abstraction transport capableness arsenic cardinal to its abstraction programme and nationalist security.

JAXA's H3 task manager, Makoto Arita, said the caller flagship is inactive successful the aboriginal stages of cognition but tin beryllium globally competitive. “We volition propulsion ourselves unneurotic truthful that we won't autumn down rivals. We'll afloat analyse the origin and enactment H3 backmost connected track.”

Monday's motorboat came 5 days aft JAXA aborted conscionable 17 seconds earlier liftoff, citing an abnormality of a h2o spray strategy astatine the motorboat facility, pursuing an earlier occupation with the rocket.

In its debut formation successful March 2023, H3 failed to ignite the second-stage engine.

Japan presently has the quasi-zenith outer system, oregon QZSS, with 5 satellites for a determination navigation strategy that archetypal went into cognition successful 2018. The Michibiki 5 was to beryllium the sixth of its network.

Japan presently relies partially connected American GPS and wants to person a seven-satellite web strategy by March 2026 and an 11-satellite web by the precocious 2030s.

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