Japan and India successfully complete launches
Japan and India today completed launches of different rockets, one on its first successful test launch.
First, early this morning Japan’s new H3 rocket successfully reached orbit for the first time, on its second attempt. The first attempt had problems, first with a launch abort at T-0 when the solid-fueled strap-on boosters failed to ignite. On the launch attempt the upper stage failed. Today’s launch was a complete success, placing a dummy payload into orbit.
Japan’s space agency JAXA however needs to learn how to run a launch in a professional manner. Minutes prior to launch an announcer began a second-by-second countdown, and continued this for minutes after the launch. Not only was this unnecessary and annoying, it made the real updates impossible to hear. India used to do this in its first few live streams, but quickly recognized the stupidity of it. In addition, the person translating the updates clearly knew nothing about rocket launches, so her translations were tentative and often completely misunderstood what had just happened.
All of this makes JAXA look like a second rate organization, which might also help explain its numerous technical failures in recent years.
About twelve hours later, at mid-day in India, India’s space agency ISRO successfully launched its GSLV rocket, placing a commercial radar environmental satellite into orbit.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
15 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia
2 Japan
2 India
American private enterprise still leads the entire world combined in successful launches 17 to 16, with SpaceX trailing the entire world combined (excluding American companies) 15 to 16.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Japan and India today completed launches of different rockets, one on its first successful test launch.
First, early this morning Japan’s new H3 rocket successfully reached orbit for the first time, on its second attempt. The first attempt had problems, first with a launch abort at T-0 when the solid-fueled strap-on boosters failed to ignite. On the launch attempt the upper stage failed. Today’s launch was a complete success, placing a dummy payload into orbit.
Japan’s space agency JAXA however needs to learn how to run a launch in a professional manner. Minutes prior to launch an announcer began a second-by-second countdown, and continued this for minutes after the launch. Not only was this unnecessary and annoying, it made the real updates impossible to hear. India used to do this in its first few live streams, but quickly recognized the stupidity of it. In addition, the person translating the updates clearly knew nothing about rocket launches, so her translations were tentative and often completely misunderstood what had just happened.
All of this makes JAXA look like a second rate organization, which might also help explain its numerous technical failures in recent years.
About twelve hours later, at mid-day in India, India’s space agency ISRO successfully launched its GSLV rocket, placing a commercial radar environmental satellite into orbit.
The leaders in the 2024 launch race:
15 SpaceX
8 China
2 Iran
2 Russia
2 Japan
2 India
American private enterprise still leads the entire world combined in successful launches 17 to 16, with SpaceX trailing the entire world combined (excluding American companies) 15 to 16.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Another take on a Falcon launch
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/attachments/funny-kind-wholesome-memes-6-65ce2f34505a9__700-jpg.720214/
Robert,
As I understand it from reading JAXA news releases, the dummy payload was simulated released and remained attached to the upper stage of the H3 stack. After the simulation, the upper stage was flipped over and a brief orbit decay burn was made causing the upper stage and the dummy payload to re-enter over water. Prior to the dummy payload release, to micro sats (TIRSAT and CE-SAT-1E) were successfully released in orbit.
I kinda found the nonstop countdown endearing…
But the real problem is whether the H3 is enough improvement over the H2-A to be remotely competitive. It’s $90 million per launch, and they’ll be lucky to launch it half a dozen times a year when it gets going. This makes even Ariane 6 look ambitious.
All that said, congrats to MHI and JAXA on a successful launch.
Well, there I was on the Rocket Lab YouTube page, A countdown was indicating a Monday launch. I switched to my Sunday morning habit of reading comics, Then the music on the Rocket Lab YouTube page changed. The launch was actually happening and has just been reported by Rocket Lab as a successful mission.
I have said previously, that there will soon be, if not already, a broadcast journalism sub-specialty for space activity, including launches.
International date line is probably the problem – comparing reported time from the source in NZ against locally generated current time – oopsie!