{"id":45445,"date":"2024-02-19T18:01:15","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T10:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/japans-new-h3-rocket-proved-it-works-but-will-it-catch-on-anywhere-else\/"},"modified":"2024-02-19T18:01:15","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T10:01:15","slug":"japans-new-h3-rocket-proved-it-works-but-will-it-catch-on-anywhere-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/japans-new-h3-rocket-proved-it-works-but-will-it-catch-on-anywhere-else\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s new H3 rocket proved it works, but will it catch on anywhere else?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japan\u2019s new H3 rocket took off Friday on its second test flight; its success is an important milestone for the launch vehicle poised to power nearly all of the Japanese space program\u2019s missions into orbit over the next decade.<\/p>\n

The 187-foot-tall (57-meter) H3 rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan at 7:22 pm EST Friday (00:22 UTC Saturday) with a dummy payload and two smaller satellites.<\/p>\n

Two hydrogen-fueled main engines and a pair of strap-on solid rocket boosters ignited with 1.6 million pounds of thrust, vaulting the H3 rocket off its launch pad on a trajectory east from Tanegashima, then south over the Pacific Ocean. The strap-on boosters burned out and jettisoned about two minutes into the flight, and the core stage\u2019s LE-9 engines fired for nearly five minutes.<\/p>\n

After releasing the first stage to fall into the Pacific, the H3\u2019s second stage lit a single LE-5B engine, also burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, for an 11-minute burn to accelerate the rocket to orbital velocity. Once in orbit, the H3 deployed an Earth-imaging microsatellite for Canon Electronics and a small Japanese CubeSat to test an infrared Earth observation sensor in space.<\/p>\n

The H3 rocket circled Earth one time before reigniting its upper-stage engine for a braking maneuver to bring it back into the atmosphere, where it was expected to burn up during reentry a couple of hours after liftoff. Before falling back to Earth, the upper stage tested its payload separation mechanism with a dummy payload called VEP-4, a nearly 3-ton metallic column aboard the rocket to simulate the mass of a medium-size satellite.<\/p>\n

Success, at last<\/h2>\n

Officials from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) were thrilled with the outcome of the test flight. Publicly available US military tracking data indicated the rocket reached an orbital altitude of approximately 420 miles (680 kilometers), with an inclination of 98.1 degrees to the equator, right on target.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\u201cThe H3 finally gave its first cry. The launch was a perfect success,\u201d said Masashi Okada, JAXA\u2019s H3 project manager, according to a report by Japan\u2019s Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.<\/p>\n

The Japanese government approved development of the H3 rocket in 2013, and the program has cost approximately 220 billion yen (nearly $1.5 billion). JAXA funded most of the cost, while Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) serves as prime contractor for the H3 rocket. MHI will also take over commercial management of the H3 program.<\/p>\n

The H3\u2019s first launch into orbit follows another milestone Japan\u2019s space program achieved last month, when the country\u2019s robotic SLIM lunar lander touched down on the Moon. This made Japan the fifth nation to accomplish a soft landing on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very happy to see such great achievements in the space field following the successful SLIM moon landing,\u201d Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida wrote in a post on X. \u201cI would like to express my respect for the efforts of everyone involved over the years and hope that Japan\u2019s core rockets will continue to steadily accumulate achievements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Two solid rocket boosters and two hydrogen-fueled LE-9 engines powered the H3 rocket into the sky over Tanegashima Island, Japan. <\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Nicholas Takahashi\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Once in operational service, the H3 rocket will launch Japanese scientific satellites, solar system exploration missions, navigation satellites, spy satellites, and resupply freighters to the International Space Station. Japanese officials also want the H3 to compete for commercial launch business on the global market, but there\u2019s stiff competition for commercial launch contracts. SpaceX dominates the commercial launch market, and a bevy of new rockets are joining the competition.<\/p>\n

So far, the H3 hasn\u2019t made much of a mark in the global launch market. Nevertheless, the H3 is critical for the future of Japan\u2019s space program. It is cheaper and more capable than Japan\u2019s workhorse H-IIA rocket, which is due for retirement after more than 20 years in service.<\/p>\n

A chance for a do-over<\/h2>\n

The successful launch Friday occurred nearly one year after the H3 rocket faltered on its first test flight. On that launch, the H3 rocket\u2019s second-stage engine failed to ignite a few minutes after liftoff, causing the launcher and its Earth observation satellite payload to plunge into the sea east of the Philippines.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

After an exhaustive investigation, engineers identified three possible electrical problems that could have caused the H3 failure last year. Investigators could not identify a definitive cause, so engineers made adjustments to the second H3 rocket to eliminate the risks from all three possibilities.<\/p>\n

The board of inquiry probing the H3 launch failure determined an electrical fault caused a loss of power on the rocket\u2019s second stage, immediately after the computer sent a signal to ignite the engine. But the investigators couldn\u2019t pinpoint the cause and instead identified three failure scenarios\u2014a short circuit in an electrical \u201cexciter\u201d or one of two overcurrent conditions within the electrical system.<\/p>\n

In a video released by JAXA before Friday\u2019s launch, Okada, the H3 project manager, said the investigation wasn\u2019t straightforward. Without any hardware to recover and inspect, engineers focused on the stream of telemetry data beamed down from the rocket in the moments just before the failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe flight data (from the first H3 test flight) was pretty tricky, with a limited number of data points and time resolution,\u201d he said. \u201cThis means we only had intermittent data.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are various ways to recover from this kind of failure,\u201d Okada said. \u201cOne way is pinpoint the exact cause, find clear evidence, and narrow it down to a single issue. The other, which is what we did, was to identify a reasonable number of causes, address them, and look ahead to the second launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in a challenging position,\u201d he said. \u201cAround four to five months after (the first launch), we felt quite stuck. However, we were relieved when we finally began to see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Engineers addressed these potential causes by adding insulation and inspections of electrical components on the rocket, improving quality-control procedures, and removing an unnecessary diode that could have contributed to one of the failure scenarios. JAXA released the final report from the investigators in October, and the agency gave the green light to start final preparations for the second H3 test flight.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The H3 rocket family is an evolution of Japan\u2019s H-IIA and H-IIB rockets, seen here in this illustration from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Mitsubishi Heavy Industries<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Over the past few months, ground crews on the southwestern Japanese island of Tanegashima stacked the H3\u2019s core stages, solid rocket boosters, and payload compartment. The fully assembled second H3 rocket rolled out to its launch pad a few days before liftoff.<\/p>\n

This time, JAXA did not risk an operational satellite on the H3 rocket. A $200 million land-imaging satellite named ALOS-3 was lost on the H3\u2019s failed launch last year. For the second H3 test flight, engineers fabricated a metallic column called a Vehicle Evaluation Payload to fly in place of a primary satellite. Two relatively low-cost small satellites rode into orbit as rideshare payloads.<\/p>\n

The metallic structure has the same mass and center of gravity as ALOS-3, and the H3 rocket launched on the same trajectory as the doomed test flight last year. These similarities will allow engineers to compare the performance of two H3 rockets flying on identical missions.<\/p>\n

No launch gap for Japan<\/h2>\n

The H3 isn\u2019t a revolutionary rocket. It\u2019s an evolution of Japan\u2019s H-IIA and H-IIB rockets, which have amassed a laudable success record in more than 22 years of service.<\/p>\n

The H-IIA has a 98 percent success rate in 48 flights since 2001, while the more powerful H-IIB was 9-for-9 before retiring in 2020. There are two more H-IIA rockets left in Japan\u2019s inventory before the H3 becomes the sole Japanese rocket available to launch most of the country\u2019s space missions.<\/p>\n

With Friday\u2019s successful launch, the H3 appears ready to take up this responsibility. There won\u2019t be a lapse in access to space for Japan, as Europe currently faces following the retirement of the Ariane 5 rocket before the debut of its replacement, the Ariane 6, later this year.<\/p>\n

The Japanese government plans to launch around 20 missions on H3 rockets by 2030. Reuters reported MHI, the rocket\u2019s manufacturer, has a long-term target of launching between eight and 10 H3 flights per year. According to Reuters, this would require additional production capacity, because the contractor\u2019s factories can currently only produce five to six H3 rockets a year.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

MHI has some selling to do if it\u2019s going to reach this goal. Japanese government demand for H3 flights will only account for a few missions per year, and MHI has announced just a single commercial launch deal for the H3 rocket. That agreement, signed in 2018, is for the launch of an unspecified communications satellite for Inmarsat, a company acquired by Viasat last year.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The four configurations of Japan\u2019s new H3 rocket, with varying numbers of core stage engines and solid rocket boosters, and short and long payload fairings.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n JAXA<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

The H3 will come in four basic configurations, with two or three core stage engines and zero, two, or four strap-on solid-fueled boosters. The rocket can also launch with a short or long payload fairing, depending on specific mission requirements.<\/p>\n

The long-term goal for JAXA and MHI is to reduce the cost of an H3 launch to less than half that of an H-IIA mission, with a target of 5 billion yen ($33 million) per flight for the lightest version of the H3, without any solid rocket boosters. In that configuration, the H3 can deliver a payload of more than 4 metric tons (8,800 pounds) into a Sun-synchronous polar orbit a few hundred miles above Earth.<\/p>\n

The most powerful version of H3 has a payload capacity of more than 6.5 metric tons (14,300 pounds) to a higher geostationary transfer orbit, according to a JAXA fact sheet. This version of the H3 rocket will launch Japan\u2019s next-generation HTV-X supply ships to the International Space Station, and future H3s could send cargo freighters to resupply the future Gateway space station around the Moon.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear how often the H3 will need to fly to reach the $33 million goal, but it likely assumes some commercial uptake. JAXA says the cost savings for H3 are realized through more efficient manufacturing processes and the use of more commercial off-the-shelf components.<\/p>\n

Officials in the Japanese government are already plotting a replacement for the H3. A space policy document released by Japan\u2019s Cabinet Office last June included language endorsing the development of a reusable rocket to follow the H3, with a first launch sometime in the 2030s.<\/p>\n

JAXA awarded MHI a contract for joint studies on this proposed next-generation launcher, which would have a recoverable and reusable first-stage booster. There\u2019s no design yet for this still-unnamed rocket, and officials have not decided on a fuel. Liquid methane or liquid hydrogen are the top contenders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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