Japan launches second flagship H3 rocket a year after failed maiden attempt

Japan launches second flagship H3 rocket a year after failed maiden attempt

Tokyo CNN — Japan’s space agency says it has successfully launched its flagship H3 space rocket, a year after its maiden attempt ended in failure.

The H3 left the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan at 9:22 a.m. local time on Saturday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said in a statement.

The space body said it had confirmed the combustion of the second-stage engine was complete, and the rocket had reached orbit as planned.

As the successor to Japan’s H-2A and H-2B rockets, the H3 is designed to be more economical by using commercial off-the-shelf products, rather than exclusive aerospace components, according to JAXA.

JAXA expects the H3 to be able to launch both government and commercial missions in the future and, if it is successful, the space agency has plans to launch it as often as six times a year for the next two decades.

H3’s maiden launch ended in failure last March when its second stage failed to ignite and its controllers issued a destruct command just 15 minutes after lift-off. That was just one of a string of problems for the maiden launch, which had already been postponed after ignition failures hit two of the rocket’s secondary booster engines.

Saturday’s successful launch