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A private Japanese rocket exploded on Earth after a failed launch attempt at Taiki, a city on the island of Hokkaido, in northern Japan, on June 30, 2018. The rocket, Momo-2, would have been the first private Japanese rocket to reach outer space.
(Kyodo News / Getty)
A private Japanese rocket crashed on Earth in a fire explosion, Saturday, June 30, moments after taking off from a test site near the town of Taiki, on Northern island of Hokkaido in Japan
. second unsuccessful attempt to launch the startup Interstellar Technologies, which became the first Japanese company to launch a private space rocket 11 months ago, on July 30, 2017. Its first rocket, Momo-1, is crushed in the ocean after losing contact with the flight The controllers about 70 seconds after takeoff, The Japan Times reported.
His second mission, Momo-2, came out with more of a sudden. After taking off at 5:30 am local time on June 30 (8:30 pm GMT, June 29), the unstuck rocket had barely left the launch pad before losing its upward thrust and succumbed to gravity, before falling back on the ramps less than 10 seconds of flight. The president of Interstellar Technologies, Takahiro Inagawa, told the press that Momo-2 had lost 4 seconds after takeoff and that a problem with the main engine of the rocket was probably to blame, according to The Japan Times. The rocket was originally scheduled to be launched in April, but the mission was delayed when engineers discovered a leak of nitrogen.
"We have never seen a failure like this," said Takafumi Horie, founder of Interstellar Technologies. Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun. "We are thinking about what we can do to maintain a connection with the next step, even if the future remains barely visible."
Asahi Shimbun reported that the accident caused no injury. However, employees who were monitoring the launch about a third of a mile (0.6 km) from the platform were ordered to evacuate after the blast.
The Momo rocket is a small launcher designed to reduce the costs of launching satellites in space. It is 33 feet (10 meters) long and weighs about 1 metric ton. In contrast, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is about as large as seven Momo rockets and weighs more than 540 tonnes. However, a Momo rocket launch costs only $ 440,000, compared to the $ 50 million it costs to launch a Falcon 9.
Interstellar Technologies, founded in 2003, hopes to launch small satellites in orbit of By 2020. A second launch The failure could force the company to push back this goal, Inagawa remained optimistic.
"We could not accomplish what we were supposed to do, I'm sorry for that," Inagawa said at a press conference. "I think I would like to continue giving a shot."
Original article on Space.com .
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