Japan’s H3 rocket launches successfully for the second time
Japan’s space agency JAXA today successfully completed the second successive launch of its new H3 rocket, placing an Earth observation satellite into orbit.
This was the third launch of the H3, with the first in May 2023 a failure, and the second a success in February 2024.
I have embedded the video of the launch below, cued to T-15 seconds. This was Japan’s third launch in 2024, exceeding last year’s total of two and matching its total from 2024.
The leader board for the 2024 launch race remains unchanged:
69 SpaceX
29 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 80 to 44, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 69 to 55.
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Japan’s space agency JAXA today successfully completed the second successive launch of its new H3 rocket, placing an Earth observation satellite into orbit.
This was the third launch of the H3, with the first in May 2023 a failure, and the second a success in February 2024.
I have embedded the video of the launch below, cued to T-15 seconds. This was Japan’s third launch in 2024, exceeding last year’s total of two and matching its total from 2024.
The leader board for the 2024 launch race remains unchanged:
69 SpaceX
29 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 80 to 44, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 69 to 55.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
JAXA might do well to acquaint their on-air public affairs people with details of the expected nature of the ascent profile in advance so as to avoid the sort of silliness we got in the middle part of the post-launch webcast.