Japan's miniature rocket crashes, but may hold hints of the future
Though Japan鈥檚 mini-rocket met its end this weekend, the era of mini-rockets may be just beginning.
On Sunday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) sent its much-anticipated SS-520 F4 mini-rocket into space, tiny satellite in tow. The rocket lifted off successfully from its launch pad at Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan. Within minutes, however, the rocket , Nikkei reported, leading JAXA to abort the mission. Both rocket and satellite crashed into the sea.
It鈥檚 a setback for Japan鈥檚 space program, which had hoped to prove the viability of these tiny rockets and , according to CNN. But demand for a cheaper way to put satellites in space continues to grow 鈥撀燼nd tiny rockets like these could still be part of the solution.
鈥淚 hope they won鈥檛 be discouraged and will try another launch, because,鈥� Shinya Matsuura, who has written about Japan's space programs, told the Japan Times.
Satellites provide a range of communication services 鈥撀爄ncluding Internet, television, and GPS 鈥撀爐o people all around the world, even in remote locations that traditional wired services have struggled to reach. Facebook, for instance, announced in 2015 that it would partner with a French satellite operator to provide Internet connectivity to much of sub-Saharan Africa. And as demand grows, increasing numbers of companies are looking to launch their own satellites.
But rockets are large, and use an array of specialized parts. That means launching the satellites into space can come with a hefty price tag, increasing the cost of the communications service.
Japan鈥檚 mini-rocket was designed to address both those problems. Since companies are mostly looking to launch compact satellites weighing around 220 lbs,聽according to Nikkei, JAXA optimized the design of its larger SS-520 rocket for a smaller cargo. (It measured .) And a team of engineers retooled the rocket to use commercially-produced electronic parts found in computers and smartphones.
The result: a rocket that cost around 楼500 million ($4.3 million) from production to launch, the Japan Times reported. Traditional rockets, by contrast, can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, meaning the mini-rocket could make it dramatically cheaper聽to send rockets into space.
These possibilities may be further away than JAXA 鈥撀燼nd companies that use satellites 鈥撀爉ight have hoped. But the potential savings mean that a single communications failure is by no means the end of the road for miniature rockets with commercially-produced parts. In fact, the US, Europe and others are already working on similar ventures, Nikkei reported.
"It is crucial that we keep moving forward and tackle our challenges," Shinichi Nakasuka, a professor at the University of Tokyo who worked on developing the tiny satellite carried by the rocket, told Nikkei.
