• Japan’s first unsuccessful rocket launch in nearly 20 years occurred on Wednesday.
• The Epsilon-6 rocket was unable to orbit the Earth and had to be terminated after less than seven minutes in the air.
• JAXA president apologized profusely for not living up to expectations.

Minutes after launch at the Uchinoura Space Center in the southern Japanese prefecture of Kagoshima, an unmanned rocket carrying satellites had to be stopped with a self-destruct command, according to Japan’s space agency.

Japan’s first unsuccessful rocket launch in nearly 20 years occurred on Wednesday with the Epsilon-6 rocket, which was unable to orbit the Earth and had to be terminated after less than seven minutes in the air.

After the mission was canceled, Hiroshi Yamakawa, president of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), apologized profusely for not living up to expectations.

Yamakawa promised to help with the inquiry into what went wrong.

Expectations were high for the space agency’s entry into the expanding satellite industry following Wednesday’s launch of commercial satellites, according to Japan’s NHK network.

Yasuhiro Funo, the project manager for JAXA, revealed that a technical problem was discovered immediately before the launch’s third and final stage, when the last strong booster was due to be ignited.

The spacecraft’s possible fall location raised safety worries, so he added, “We ordered the rocket’s destruction because if we cannot deliver it into the orbit that we planned, we don’t know where it would go.”

According to JAXA representatives, the company decided the rocket couldn’t fly safely and enter the intended orbit, so it issued a self-destruction signal. Officials stated that the rocket and payloads were likely to have landed in the sea east of the Philippines.

Eight payloads were carried by the Epsilon rocket, two of which were produced by a commercial business with its headquarters in Fukuoka, another southern prefecture. It was the first launch of a commercially produced payload on an Epsilon rocket.

Before JAXA planned to create another variant, Epsilon-S, the Epsilon-6 rocket was the last iteration, measuring 26 meters (85 feet) long, 95.6 tonnes, and using solid fuel.

Next year, a Vietnamese satellite will be launched commercially by the Japanese company IHI Aerospace using the modified Epsilon-S.

One of the biggest space programs in the world is that of Japan, and last week, JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata launched aboard Crew-5 to the International Space Station.

After sending a space probe called Hayabusa-2 to the asteroid Ryugu, where it recovered pristine material that is currently being examined for hints about the origins of life, JAXA has been under the spotlight.

The launch attempt on Wednesday had been postponed from last Friday because of the position of a positioning satellite in the universe.

[embedpost slug=”japan-reopens-to-tourists-despite-closed-gift-stores-and-a-lack-of-hotel-staff”]