Tag: Japan
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Rocket Report: A new estimate of Starship costs; Japan launches spy satellite
Welcome to Edition 6.27 of the Rocket Report! This week, we discuss an intriguing new report looking at Starship. Most fascinating, the report covers SpaceX’s costs to build a Starship and how these costs will come down as the company ramps up its build and launch cadence. At the other end of the spectrum, former…
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Japan becomes the fifth nation to land a spacecraft on the Moon
The Japanese space agency’s first lunar lander arrived on the the Moon’s surface Friday, but a power system problem threatens to cut short its mission. Japan’s robotic Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) mission began a 20-minute final descent using two hydrazine-fueled engines to drop out of orbit. After holding to hover at 500 meters…
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Japan is studying a reusable rocket, but it won’t fly before 2030
Japan debuted the new flagship H3 rocket in March, capping a decade-long, nearly $1.5 billion development effort to replace a launch vehicle that has been in service for more than 20 years. The H3’s upper stage failed to ignite a few minutes after liftoff, causing the rocket and its Earth observation payload to crash into…
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Japanese company says commercial spacecraft crashed on moon landing attempt
Executives from ispace (lower left) watch animation of the Hakuto-R landing sequence Tuesday in Tokyo. Credit: ispace A small spacecraft attempting to become the first privately-funded probe to accomplish a controlled landing on the moon likely fell to the lunar surface after running out of fuel Tuesday, according to the Japanese company ispace, which managed…
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Live coverage: Contact lost with Japanese moon lander
Live coverage of the landing of ispace’s commercial Hakuto-R spacecraft on the moon. The landing attempt is scheduled for around 12:40 p.m. EDT (1640 UTC). Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter. [tabby title=”ispace Webcast”] [tabbyending] A live video webcast from ispace will begin approximately one…
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Japanese company aims to become first company to land on the moon Tuesday
The Hakuto-R lunar lander captured this view of Earthrise from an altitude of about 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the lunar surface. Credit: ispace The Japanese company ispace could become the first commercial firm to achieve a controlled landing on the moon Tuesday, when its privately-funded unpiloted Hakuto-R lander attempts to touch down inside a…
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Japanese space science missions facing delays after H3 rocket failure
The spacecraft for the Japanese-led X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, or XRISM, undergoes acoustic testing in Japan in December 2022. Credit: JAXA The launch of a Japanese X-ray telescope and robotic lunar lander has been delayed to no earlier than August, and the launch schedule for another Japanese mission to return samples from a moon…
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Crew Dragon Endurance returns to Earth on Crew-5 mission
The Crew-5 astronauts returned to Earth on the evening of Saturday, March 11, after spending the last five months aboard the International Space Station. Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, Koichi Wakata of JAXA, and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos undocked their Crew Dragon, C210 Endurance, early on Saturday at 2:20 AM EST (07:20 UTC).…
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Japan’s maiden launch of H3 rocket fails during second stage flight
JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries launched – at the second attempt – to maiden launch of the H3 launch vehicle at 01:37 UTC Tuesday. However, the vehicle failed shortly after staging, via an apparent failure to light the second stage that was set to deploy the ALOS-3 optical satellite into a 669-kilometer Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).…
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Japan begins busy year with classified IGS-Radar 7 launch
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Mitsubishi Industries have conducted the nation’s first orbital flight of 2023. The mission saw an H-IIA rocket carry the classified IGS-7 radar reconnaissance satellite into a Sun-synchronous orbit. Liftoff occurred on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023, at 01:49:20 UTC from Launch Area Y1 at the Tanegashima Space Center in…