Japan's next-gen H3 satellite launch vehicle fails on debut

Japan's space exploration agency (JAXA) has destroyed the first of its next-gen H3 boosters after it went off course during its maiden test flight. The craft launched today from the Tanegashima spaceport and performed nominally for the first few minutes of its flight, with the rocket's first stage performing as planned and …

[lglethal]

Space is Hard...

Unfortunately, there's not much more you can say.

Sounds a bit like they havent got on top of the communication signal problem that they had with the boosters. But naturally, we'll only know once they actually find the problem. Hopefully, it's not a big challenge to fix...

[andy 103]

Sad

I always find it sad when things like this happen because of how much went into getting it up there in the first place.

Feel the same when a pilot ejects from a jet and it gets destroyed. Of course life always should come first and in a case where something's unsalvageable there isn't really a second option.

But I feel for the people who put their hearts and souls into getting something built and were excited to see it launch.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sad

And yet the people who built the self-destruct systems get to see their work in action. But I'm sure even they feel disappointed that it was required.

.

(icon -> oh shit, it's pointing the wrong way)

[Boris the Cockroach]

Re: Sad

Been there... watched our bits plunge into the ocean instead of soaring into orbit.

We made 10... 8 for testing, 1 for backup and 1 for the fish to play with :(

[A Non e-mouse]

Commisatory beer (or sake) for those building this.

[ChaosFreak]

Almost there

Another way of looking at this is that they built an incredibly complex machine and manage to get it almost into orbit on the first attempt. That's actually not bad, considering how many failures NASA, SpaceX and others have experienced on their way to perfecting new launch vehicles.