Yasuhiro Funo, project manager for the Japanese space agency Jaxa, said the rocket was signaled to self-destruct 10 minutes after takeoff on Wednesday due to an unusual positioning.
“We have ordered the rocket to be destroyed because if we can’t put it in the orbit we planned, we won’t know where it will go,” Funo said at a press conference.
The unmanned rocket was first launched from the Uchinoura spaceport in southwestern Japan’s Kagoshima region. The live broadcast of the launch was interrupted shortly after. The moderators in protective helmets explained to the audience that there was a problem in the beginning.
Rocket fragments apparently landed in the sea
Funo said the technical issue affected the final stage of launch, where the last powerful propulsion system would fire. After the mission was cancelled, Jaxa assumes the missile fragments ended up in the sea east of the Philippines.
For Japan’s space agency, it’s the first false launch in two decades and just one of the so-called Epsilon rockets. The solid model has flown on five successful missions since its debut in 2013. The 26-metre-long Epsilon-6 rocket carried a box-shaped satellite and eight microsatellites intended to remain in Earth orbit for at least a year for experiments.
Jaxa President apologizes
Jaxa President Hiroshi Yamakawa apologized for the failure of the launch and said the agency was “very sorry we weren’t able to meet the expectations of the Japanese people”. Jaxa will try to find the reasons for the false start.
(AFP)