Japanese rocket test ends in unexpected blast, pushing back space plans
A recent test of Japans new Epsilon S rocket ended with an engine explosion at space center. The incident forces JAXA to re-think its launch schedule while working with IHI to find out what went wrong
At the Tanegashima Space Center last tuesday a planned Epsilon S rocket test didnt go as expected — the engine blew up 49 seconds after start-up (causing quite a mess at the facility)
The test failure hit IHIs stock hard making it drop 7 percent. Takayuki Imoto‚ JAXAs project lead tried to stay positive: “At least we found this issue during ground tests not during actual flight.“ The clean-up and investigation will need several months to finish
This isnt the first set-back for the program: similar issues happened about one-and-half years ago with thermal damage; and the older version of the rocket failed its mission roughly 2 years back. The good news is that Japans bigger H3 rocket had three good launches this year after some early problems
The space-race is heating up in Japan: private company Space One (backed by IHI) wants to try launching its Kairos rocket in mid-december after its first try didnt work out last spring. They really want to be first japanese business putting satellites up there
- SpaceX leads the market
- Rocket Lab competes in small launches
- H3 got orders from Eutelsat
- JAXA works with IHI on improvements
The government sees this as key stuff — Yoshimasa Hayashi from the Cabinet says space tech is “extremely important“ for Japans independence in space business
