SPACE NEWS

SpaceX test fires giant Starship booster — and spaceship — for 3rd test flight (video)

Tariq Malik
Sat, December 30, 2023 

A giant silver rocket booster tests its engines on the launch pad.

SpaceX closed out 2023 with a fiery double test of its next Starship megarocket booster and spacecraft on Friday (Sept. 29), sharing some stunning videos of both vehicles in the process.

The dual test of engines on the giant Starship and Super Heavy rocket stages at SpaceX's Starbase proving ground in Boca Chica, Texas on Friday comes as the company prepares for its third Starship launch test, which is expected in early 2024.

"Just completed static fire of Flight 3 Super Heavy Booster," SpaceX CEO Elon

 Musk wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday. The test, which lasted about 10 seconds, successfully fired all 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster, which serves as the first stage of the Starship rocket, the world's largest and most powerful booster.

SpaceX's Starship Booster 10 test fires its 33 Raptor engines on Dec. 29,2023 in Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX's official X account confirmed the successful test of the Super Heavy Booster 10, as well as a separate test of one Raptor engine on the Starship Ship 28 that will ride atop Super Heavy Booster 10 during the upcoming test flight. That Starship test was aimed at demonstrating the Raptor engine's restart capabilities in space, the company said.

"Ignition of a single Raptor engine on Flight 3 Starship demonstrating a flight-like startup for an in-space burn," SpaceX wrote in a X post.

SpaceX launched two Starship test flights in 2023, first in April and then in November, though neither test flight successfully completed its objective of sending a Starship upper stage craft around the Earth to a splashdown point in Pacific Ocean near Hawaii while the Super Heavy first stage splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico.

Related: SpaceX's 2nd Starship launch is amazing in stunning photos and videos


If you can't see SpaceX's Starship in person, you can score a model of your own. Standing at 13.77 inches (35 cm), this is a 1:375 ratio of SpaceX's Starship as a desktop model. The materials here are alloy steel and it weighs just 225g.View Deal

During the April test launch, Starship and its Super Heavy booster failed to separate as planned, leading SpaceX to intentionally detonate the rocket four minutes after liftoff. The test also destroyed much of SpaceX's Starship launch pad, requiring extensive repairs.

The second test flight, called Flight 2, demonstrated several big successes, including a successful stage separation and a normal first-stage engine burn. However, the Starship upper stage exploded about eight minutes after liftoff after experiencing an event that triggered its automated flight termination system. The first stage also exploded shortly after stage separation.

SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy megarocket are designed to be fully reusable and will one day fly astronauts to the moon and back. NASA has tapped Starship to land its Artemis 3 astronauts on the moon and SpaceX has already booked private flights around the moon with several customers.

When stacked, Starship and its Super Heavy booster stand nearly 400 feet (122 meters) tall as the largest rocket ever built. It is also designed to be the most powerful, capable of hauling up to 165 tons (150 metric tons) of cargo to low Earth orbit.

RELATED STORIES:

— SpaceX Starship megarocket launches on 2nd-ever test flight, explodes in 'rapid unscheduled disassembly' (video)

— Epic 33-engine burn among successes of Starship's 2nd test flight, SpaceX says

— SpaceX's epic Starship liftoff didn't damage launch pad, Elon Musk says

While SpaceX hopes to launch the Flight 3 test of its Starship system soon, exactly when that may occur is unclear. The company must wait for a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration, which is overseeing an investigation on Flight 2. The FAA will likely not grant a license for Flight 3 until that investigation is complete and SpaceX has implemented any corrective actions that may be required, if any are at all.

Friday's Starship and Super Heavy engine tests came one day after an epic rocket launch doubleheader to close the company's launch year.

On Thursday (Dec. 28), SpaceX launched a Falcon Heavy rocket carrying a robotic X-37B space plane for the U.S. Space Force from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, then lofted a Falcon 9 rocket (with 23 Starlink satellites aboard) from the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station just under three hours later.

Jaw-Dropping News: Boeing and Lockheed Just Matched SpaceX's Prices

Rich Smith, The Motley Fool
Sat, December 30, 2023 at 5:07 AM MST·5 min read

Once upon a time -- oh, about eight years ago -- it cost as much as $400 million to launch a rocket to space. But then along came SpaceX.

Advertising launch prices as low as $67 million to put 22 tons of cargo in low Earth orbit with its Falcon 9 rocket, and developing a Starship vehicle that could launch 5 times more cargo for $2 million or less, SpaceX is making real progress toward its goal of lowering the cost of space travel by a factor of 100.

Granted, Starship still hasn't conducted a successful test flight to orbit. But it's getting close. And for rival launch company United Launch Alliance -- a joint venture between Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) -- time is running out to field a rocket that can compete with SpaceX on cost.

But here's the good news for Boeing and Lockheed Martin shareholders: ULA may have done just that. It now appears to have a rocket that can compete with SpaceX on cost.

And its name is Vulcan Centaur.

Image source: Getty Images.
From $400 million to $100 million

If you recall, ULA's Delta IV Heavy was the "$400 million rocket" that SpaceX ridiculed in Congressional hearings back in 2015. But the Delta IV family has since been shut down, and the rocket ULA chose to replace it, the Vulcan Centaur, costs quite a bit less.

In 2016, ULA CEO Tory Bruno set a goal of building and launching Vulcan Centaur for less than $100 million. On the face of it, that might not seem particularly aspirational. It fails to match, much less beat, the $67 million launch price that SpaceX advertises. On the other hand, getting costs down from $400 million to $100 million would still be a vast improvement. And in the context of the U.S. government national security launches -- which usually cost more than commercial launches -- that ULA specializes in, $100 million might be good enough to keep ULA competitive with SpaceX.

Case in point: Last month, the U.S. Space Force announced a series of 21 launch contracts awarded to both SpaceX and ULA. Totaling $2.5 billion in value, the contracts were split between the leading space companies, with ULA winning 11 launches for $1.3 billion, and SpaceX bagging 10 launches for $1.2 billion.

Do the math. That's $120 million per launch for SpaceX... and only $118 million per launch for ULA.

Abracadabra: ULA just matched SpaceX's prices.

Apples and jumbo-sized oranges

Well, sort of.

As CNBC pointed out last month, all 11 of ULA's launches will utilize the company's newer, cheaper Vulcan Centaur offering. SpaceX will launch seven Falcon 9s, and three Falcon Heavies -- jumbo-sized rockets equipped with two additional Falcon 9 boosters each, for which SpaceX charges an extra $30 million.

So the prices launches aren't 100% comparable. If all 10 SpaceX missions were slated to launch atop Falcon 9s, the cost would probably be closer to $1.1 billion total, or $110 million apiece. That means SpaceX launches still probably cost at least a little bit more than ULA.

But we're approaching the point where the difference in price is a mere rounding error.
Merry Christmas to Boeing and Lockheed Martin?

Now, it remains to be seen what a first-time-ever parity in pricing between SpaceX prices and ULA will mean for Boeing and Lockheed Martin stocks, not least because Boeing and Lockheed Martin might sell ULA to another company in the next few weeks.

Still, for the sake of argument, assume that Boeing and Lockheed don't sell ULA -- or at least don't sell it right away. In that case, you might assume that lower launch prices will mean less revenue and less profit for these two defense giants, which own ULA, to split in the future.

That's not necessarily the case, however. True, S&P Global Market Intelligence data show that Lockheed's space revenue has declined over the past couple of years as competition from SpaceX forced prices down. Also true, Lockheed's space profit margins have eroded, down from 12.6% in 2015, before SpaceX began competing on national security missions, to just 8.8% last year. The same is probably true for Boeing, but Boeing doesn't break out the numbers for its space business.

But if Vulcan Centaur costs less to build and operate than ULA's older Atlas and Delta rockets, then revenue might stop falling -- and profit margin might even rise once Vulcan starts launching.

That's the outcome Boeing and Lockheed investors should be hoping for, and thanks to Tory Bruno for delivering on his promise to cut launch prices, it's a realistic hope.

Should you invest $1,000 in Lockheed Martin right now?

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Look At An X-37B In Space With An Extended Payload Module
Joseph Trevithick
Fri, December 29, 2023 

A video montage shown before the latest launch of a U.S. Space Force X-37B mini-shuttle appears to offer the first look at one of these spaceplanes outside of the Earth's atmosphere.


Boeing and SpaceX have shared footage of U.S. Space Force’s secretive X-37B mini-shuttles in space with a payload-laden service module attached. A brief video clip showing the X-37B with the module separating from its launch rocket after being lofted into space in 2020 was included in a video montage shown ahead of the latest launch of an X-37B yesterday. You can find out more about what we can expect from the new X-37B mission in The War Zone's previous reporting.

SpaceX broadcast the video montage that included the clip in question just minutes before a Falcon Heavy rocket with an X-37B on top blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida last night. User @DutchSpace on X, formerly known as Twitter, was among the first to spot the clip of the X-37B separating into space.

The montage begins at approximately 3:38 in the runtime of the video seen below.

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1740535676519821537

Boeing previously released the footage of the service module-equipped X-37B in space, but it was not widely disseminated. The War Zone reached out to Boeing, which designed and built the two X-37Bs, originally for the U.S. Air Force, and continues to provide contractor support for the spaceplanes, as well as SpaceX, for more information. Boeing subsequently directed us to contact the U.S. Space Force for more details.

The rendering in the social media post from Boeing below (parts of which are also in the montage that SpaceX broadcast during its live stream) also shows exactly where in the launch sequence the footage of the service module-equipped X-37B in space comes from. The spaceplane is notably depicted here without the module.

https://twitter.com/BoeingSpace/status/1740529654170026233?s=20

The footage of the service module-equipped X-37B in space is from the start of the record-setting Orbital Test Vehicle 6 (OTV-6) mission, which began on May 17, 2020, and ended 908 days (nearly two and a half years) later on November 12, 2022. For OTV-6, the module is known to have been used to launch the U.S. Air Force Academy's FalconSat-8, a small cubesat, which can also be seen in the footage. You can read more about what is known about the OTV-6 mission here.

https://twitter.com/DutchSpace/status/1740556623297540581

U.S. Space Force and Boeing only released the first pictures of the service module, including ones showing FalconSat-8 and other payloads loaded onto it, after the conclusion of the OTV-6 mission last year.


The X-37B used for the OTV-6 mission seen ahead of its launch in 2020 with the service module attached to its tail-end. This picture was released in November 2022 after OTV-6's conclusion. U.S. Space Force

https://twitter.com/DutchSpace/status/1687816341623832576

Boeing previously released similar footage of an X-37B without the service module separating from its launch rocket during the OTV-1 mission, which began on April 22, 2010, and ended on December 3 of that year.

https://twitter.com/DutchSpace/status/1262462070592802818

Much about the X-37Bs and their missions do remain highly classified, which has led to much speculation, including about their potential use as space-based intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) or weapons platforms. The War Zone has explored what is known about these spaceplanes and their capabilities in depth in the past.

The X-37B's latest mission, known as OTV-7, is as shadowy as ever. SpaceX pointedly did not provide any footage of the second stage of the Falcon Heavy containing spaceplane after launch, which a company representative said during the live stream was "at our customer's request."

Last night's launch, also known as USSF-52, was also the first time one of these spaceplanes has been put into orbit using a Falcon Heavy rocket. This would allow it to be placed in a much higher orbit than on previous missions, as The War Zone previously explored.

https://twitter.com/johnkrausphotos/status/1740541251454460360

Space Force had already disclosed that OTV-7 will "include operating the reusable spaceplane in new orbital regimes" and there have been other indications that the mission could take the X-37B beyond the so-called geostationary orbit (GEO) belt around the Earth, as you can read more about here. The GEO belt is defined as being around 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above sea level. Orbits that take spacecraft beyond the GEO belt are categorized as high earth orbits (HEO).

A graphic depicting the major different orbits around our planet, from low earth orbit (LEO), via medium earth orbit (MEO), to geostationary orbit (GEO). Sedrubal via Wikimedia

The U.S. government-operated website Space-Track.org has last night's launch its database (where the X-37B being used on the OTV-7 mission has also now been logged as USA 349), but no details about its orbit are provided.

A screenshot of Space-Track.org's Satellite Catalog (SATCAT) showing the information provided (or lack thereof) for USA 349. The entry's launch date is based on the Zulu time that the Falcon Heavy blasted off (just after 1:00 AM Zulu on December 29). The launch site is listed as the Air Force Eastern Test Range (AFETR), which is utilized for space launches out of the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Space-Track.orgMore

What the OTV-7 orbit might look like remains unclear and it could also change significantly over the course of the mission. The X-37B is highly maneuverable and the spaceplanes have been observed changing their positions during previous missions. Reports in the past have suggested that the X-37B may be able to rapidly redirect itself by dipping one of its wings into Earth's atmosphere as it passes by.

Pennsylvania-headquartered private space surveillance firm COMSPOC had released a video showing a notional HEO scenario ahead of the launch. Bob Hall, COMSPOC's Director of Operations Integration, explained to The War Zone that this model was based on publicly available information. This includes warning notices to aviators and mariners about the impending launch and a previously released requirements document that mentioned OTV-7 and a requirement "to lift a certain mass to a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO)."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU3nRZZWL_s

"A GTO is essentially a HEO orbit, but with the orbit plane set up so that a satellite could easily maneuver into GEO orbit. In this case, we believe the inclination is not consistent with a GTO per se," COMSPOC's Hall added. "All of this combined gives us confidence that the current mission is in a HEO orbit similar to the one shown in the video."

"For the HEO (Highly Elliptical Orbit) video we wanted to show our best guess for the possible orbit for this mission and give a sense of scale," he continued. "In the HEO video, we see the orbit trace out as the vehicle goes around – much further from the Earth."

COMSPOC also released a video showing a notional low Earth orbit (LEO) based on what is known about previous X-37B missions, though this seems very unlikely for OTV-7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOfqPGbVBUA

Other independent experts have provided additional models of what we might expect to see from the X-37B entering a HEO using similar publicly available information.

https://twitter.com/Marco_Langbroek/status/1740544179804225742

Otherwise, much about the OTV-7 remains unknown. In addition to the statement about the orbital regimes, Space Force has previously said that the mission will include "experimenting with future space domain awareness technologies, and investigating the radiation effects on materials provided by NASA."

NASA's Seeds-2 experiment, which will explore what happens to plant seeds exposed to "the harsh radiation environment of long-duration spaceflight, is the only payload Space Force has so far disclosed that the X-37B is carrying on OTV-7.

"As to the purpose of the orbit/mission – we do know that one goal is space domain awareness (SDA) technology," COMPSOC's Hall also told The War Zone, while noting that "without any further knowledge" it would be hard to say for sure what this might involve. Speaking generally, he said that one possibility could be the use of "the X-37B as a calibration test target for the recently launched Silent Barker SDA satellites in near GEO."

"Other possible missions" might include "Remote Earth Sensing, SDA from the X-37B itself or from subsatellites it drops off, Rendezvous Proximity Operations, On Orbit Servicing, etc.," Hall said.

The X-37B used on the OTV-6 mission on the flight line at the Kennedy Space Center after its return to Earth on November 12, 2022. USAF

U.S. military activity in and related to space is highly classified, in general. This is something American officials and members of Congress have outspoken about changing in recent years. This is all part of efforts to better communicate to the public about the importance of space to military operations (and daily life) and potential threats outside of the Earth's atmosphere, as well as what the U.S. government is doing about those issues. The X-37Bs are themselves now tied to the Space Force's main unit tasked with "orbital warfare."

Space has fully emerged as a key military domain and potential battlefield in future conflicts, especially one against a near-peer adversary like China or Russia. The Chinese and Russian military have both fielded various anti-satellite weapons and are developing new capabilities. China has been dramatically expanding its overall presence in orbit.

The continued push and pull over the heavy classification of U.S. military space activities can be clearly seen in how details about the X-37Bs and their missions are handled, including just in the context of the launch last night.

The release of the first look at an X-37B with the service module in space could be a sign that more details will start to emerge about what those spaceplanes have been up to, at least in the past.

Editor's Note: Previously released footage of an X-37B in space during the OTV-1 mission has come to our attention thanks to @DutchSpace.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

Chinese rocket booster falls from space, crashes near house, after satellite launch: report

Samantha Mathewson
Fri, December 29, 2023

A Chinese Long March 3B rocket during launch.

Rocket debris from China’s recent satellite launch fell to ground near inhabited areas, where bystanders caught the fiery touchdown on tape.

The China National Space Administratio launched two satellites into orbit on Monday (Dec. 25) at 10:26 p.m. EST (0326 GMT Dec. 26 or 11:26 a.m. local time in China) from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province. The Long March 3B rocket carried two satellites for China’s Beidou Navigation Satellite System, which is roughly equivalent to the GPS system used in North America.

While the satellites were successfully delivered into medium Earth orbit (MEO), side boosters of the Long March 3B multistage launch vehicle fell back to Earth and landed in South China’s Guangxi region, SpaceNews.com reported.

Related: China launches BeiDou navigation satellite to orbit (video)

Bystander footage shared on X (formally Twitter) by space journalist Andrew Jones, originally from Weibo, apparently shows one of the boosters falling within a forested area. The video shows an explosion. Reports also emerged of wreckage from the other booster that were said to have landed near a home.

"The presence of reddish-brown gas or smoke indicative of nitrogen tetroxide is visible in both, while a yellowish gas, possibly the results of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) fuel mixing with air, can be seen next to the building," according to SpaceNews.com.

"The first stage and four side boosters of the Long March 3B use the hypergolic propellant combination of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. Both the nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer and UDMH fuel present serious health risks."

RELATED STORIES:

— China launches secret space plane on 3rd-ever mission

— China launches BeiDou navigation satellite to orbit (video)

— China wants to launch over 200 spacecraft in 2023

This is not the first time rocket boosters associated with Beidou satellite launches have reported to fall near inhabited areas. In 2019, a booster — which provides the necessary thrust for lift-off and then separates from the main stage — fell back to Earth after launch and destroyed a home, according to reports.

China has also been criticized many times for allowing the massive Long March 5 rocket to fall back to Earth naturally, causing space debris, following launches of the heavy-launch system.

China has inland launch sites, compared to coastal launch sites, which allow rocket debris to land in the ocean. Public notices and evacuations are issued ahead of such rocket launches to warn residents of potential risks from rocket debris.

As the 57th and 58th Beidou satellites to be launched, the pair will act as backups and reduce the operational risks to the Beidou-3 system, which consists of satellites in MEO, geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) and inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO). This network of satellites ensures continuous and stable signal coverage for China’s global navigation systems.

Chandrayaan, Aditya-L1, Gaganyaan: The year India reached the Moon - and aimed for the Sun

Geeta Pandey - BBC News, Delhi
Fri, December 29, 2023 

In India, 2023 will be remembered as the year we went to the Moon.

On 23 August, massive celebrations broke out across the country when Chandrayaan-3 touched down in the lunar south pole region - an area on the Moon's surface that no-one had reached before.

With this, India also joined an elite club of countries to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.


In the following months, India continued its journey into space - by sending an observation mission to the Sun and then by carrying out a key test flight ahead of its planned mission to take astronauts into space in 2025.

We look back at an eventful year when India's strides into space made global headlines.
To the Moon

It was "20 minutes of terror" for scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) as the Vikram lander, carrying the Pragyaan rover in its belly, began its descent to the Moon's surface.

The lander's speed was gradually reduced from 1.68km per second to almost zero, enabling it to make a soft landing in the south pole region where the surface is "very uneven" and "full of craters and boulders".

"India is on the Moon," a triumphant Isro chief S Somanath announced - and with that the country entered the history books.

Over the next 10 days, space scientists - and the rest of the country - followed every move made by the lander and the rover as they gathered data and images and relayed them back to Earth for analysis.

Isro released a graphic of the path taken by the lunar rover

So we saw images of the six-wheeled rover sliding down from the lander's belly and taking its first steps on the lunar soil. Moving at a speed of 1cm per second, it "traversed over 100m [328 feet]" and at times re-routed to avoid falling into craters.

Some of their findings that show a sharp difference in temperatures just above and below the lunar surface and confirmed presence of a host of chemicals, especially sulphur, in the soil have enthused space scientists and the scientific community at large.

A proud Isro said the mission had not just completed its goals but also exceeded them.

How important are India's Moon mission findings?


India Moon mission's key module back in Earth's orbit

One of the highlights, Isro said, was Vikram's "hop experiment". The agency said that when the lander was "commanded to fire its engines, it rose up by about 40cm [16 inches] and landed at a distance of 30-40cm". This "successful experiment" means the spacecraft could be used in future to bring samples back to the Earth or for human missions, it added.

And earlier this month Isro said it had successfully brought back into Earth's orbit a part of the rocket that carried Chandrayaan-3 to the Moon.

The "propulsion module", which had detached from the Vikram lander after ferrying it close to the Moon, had re-entered Earth's orbit after a series of complex manoeuvres.

Together, the hop experiment and the return of the propulsion module to Earth's orbit are crucial for Isro's future plans to bring back samples or return astronauts from Space.
Looking at the Sun

Just days after the Moon landing, India launched Aditya-L1 - its first observation mission to the Sun.

The rocket that took off on 2 September is on a four-month 1.5 million km (932,000 miles)-journey from the Earth and is expected to reach its destination next week.

That destination - called L1 or Lagrange point 1 - is at 1% of the Earth-Sun distance. It's the exact spot between where the gravitational forces of two large objects, such as the Sun and the Earth, cancel each other out, allowing a spacecraft to "hover".

Once Aditya - named after the Hindu god of Sun - reaches this "parking spot", it would be able to orbit the Sun at the same rate as the Earth. From this vantage point, it will keep an eye on the Sun 24/7 and carry out scientific studies.

Aditya-L1's trajectory

The orbiter is carrying seven scientific instruments that will observe and study the solar corona (the outermost layer); the photosphere (the Sun's surface or the part we see from the Earth) and the chromosphere (a thin layer of plasma that lies between the photosphere and the corona).

Isro says the studies will help scientists understand solar activity, such as the solar wind and solar flares, and their effect on Earth and space weather in real time.

The agency has already shared some of the scientific data collected by the orbiter - and images taken by its camera have been watched millions of times on X (formerly Twitter).
Can we return from space?

That's the key question that India's space agency tried to answer when it launched the Gaganyaan spacecraft on 21 October, the first in a series of test flights ahead of its planned mission to take astronauts into space in 2025.

India has said it plans to place three astronauts into low-Earth orbit at an altitude of 400km for three days and the Isro chief has said Gaganyaan is their "immediate priority".

"Send an Indian to space and bring them back safely - this is our immediate big-ticket target," Mr Somanath said.

Gaganyaan's crew escape module was fished out from the Bay of Bengal by Indian navy divers

The test flight in October was to demonstrate whether the crew can safely escape the rocket in case it malfunctions.

So, once the rocket had travelled about 12km in the sky, its abort systems were activated and a series of parachutes were deployed which brought it down safely in the waters of Bay of Bengal from where it was fished out by Indian navy divers.

Since the test was successful, Isro has said it will first send a female humanoid - a robot that resembles a human - in an unmanned Gaganyaan spacecraft before finally sending astronauts into space.

Japan's H3 rocket will launch a 2nd time in February 2024 after explosive failure

Robert Lea
Thu, December 28, 2023 

A rocket sits on a launch pad in between towers with cloudy sky in behind.


The Japanese space agency's H3 rocket system will return to the launchpad in early 2024 after an explosive failure this year.

The H3 will launch from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA's) Tanegashima Space Center as soon as Feb. 14, 2024, officials said in a statement released on Wednesday (Dec. 27).

The prime launch window runs between 7:22 p.m. and 11:06 p.m. EST Feb. 14 (0022 and 0406 GMT, or 9:22 a.m. and 1:06 p.m. local time in Japan on Feb. 15.) Backup launch windows for the mission, designated H3 Test Flight 2 (H3TF2), run from Feb. 15 through the end of March.


The decision to launch H3 will be a year after the failed inaugural flight of H3, developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), on March 7, 2023. The new launch will haul a flight demonstration module, called the Vehicle Evaluation Payload-4, along with two small satellites known as CE-SAT-IE and TIRSAT.

Related: Japan's new H3 rocket fails on 1st test flight, advanced Earth observation satellite lost

The H3 rocket stands at 187 feet or 207 feet (57 or 63 m) tall, depending on how it is configured at launch, according to JAXA. The launch system is capable of hauling over four tons of payload to a 310-mile (500-kilometer) sun-synchronous orbit, meaning that the lighting conditions are consistent below the spacecraft.

The rocket can also send in excess of 6.5 tons to a geostationary transfer orbit — the kind of orbits that satellites use to move into a geosynchronous orbit over Earth's equator. (Geosynchronous orbits allow satellites to consistently gaze at one spot of Earth's surface.)

During the last flight attempt in March, H3 operators at JAXA issued a self-destruct command to the H3 launch system, explosively concluding its first test flight. The destruction of the H3 rocket also resulted in the loss of the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-3 (ALOS-3), also known as DAICHI-3.

While the rocket lifted off successfully and accomplished stage separation, around seven minutes into the flight, it was noticed that the rocket's velocity was dropping. Operators also could not confirm second-stage ignition. The self-destruct command was sent shortly afterwards.

A month before the launch failure on March 7, JAXA scuttled a liftoff of the same H3 rocket due to a faulty power supply.

Related

— Japan's new H3 rocket fails on 1st test flight, advanced Earth observation satellite lost

— Faulty power supply scuttled debut launch of Japan's new H3 rocket

—New Japanese spacecraft aims to explore the mysterious moons of Mars

Neither JAXA nor MHI have disclosed many details of what caused the failure of the first H3 test flight, according to Space News. At a press conference in September 2023, MHI vice-president and general manager Iwao Igarashi said that an investigation into the H3 failure had been conducted, but did not elaborate.

The failed launch had ripple effects on another Japanese rocket, known as the H-2A. Both rockets use a similar second stage, causing H-2A's next launch to be pushed back from May to Sept. 2023 during the investigation.

H-2A's launch on Sept. 6 went without a hitch, however. It sent the moon-bound Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft and the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) telescope into space. XRISM is now working in orbit around Earth. SLIM reached lunar orbit at 2:51 a.m. EST (0951 GMT or 4:51 p.m. Japan time) on Monday (Dec. 25) ahead of an expected touchdown on the moon's surface on Jan. 19.