Japan forced to destroy flagship H3 rocket in failed launch
Written by Olarotimi Oshin on March 7, 2023
Japan’s maiden launch of its new flagship space rocket ended in failure today when controllers issued a destruct command just 15 minutes after liftoff according to the country’s space agency.
Japan was forced to blow up its new rocket during a failed launch today, setting back efforts to crack a market led by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration space agency had to send a self-destruct command to the H3 rocket when its second-stage engine failed minutes after lift-off as the government called the test failure “extremely regrettable”.
The engineers today, aimed to send the 57m (187ft) rocket into space with a monitoring satellite on board. The ALOS-3 system is capable of detecting North Korean missile launches.
However, Japan’s science minister Keiko Nagaoka noted that the authorities would investigate the cause of the engine failure.
