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.
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’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.
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
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.