A flight of Japan’s H3 rocket ended in failure on Dec. 22 after the upper stage experienced an anomaly.
In a post-launch statement, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) pointed to an issue with the LE-5B-3 engine, which is powered by a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
“The second stage engine’s second ignition failed to start normally and shut down prematurely,” JAXA said. “As a result, QZS-5 could not be put into the planned orbit, and the launch failed.”
The rocket lifted off at 10:51 a.m. JST (0151 UTC) from the Tanegashima Space Center on Dec. 22 and had a nominal performance of the rocket’s first stage. There were two planned burns of the upper stage, according to the planned mission timeline.
The second burn was slated to last for more than four minutes in duration, but it ended abruptly.
“It would be impossible to carry out next liftoff without determining the cause (of the failure) and implementing preventive measures,” JAXA project manager Makoto Arita said at a press conference, according to Japan Wire by Kyodo News. The post-anomaly news conference was entirely in Japanese.
Its payload, the QZS-5 (Quasi-Zenith Satellite System) was the sixth satellite launched to provide local navigation services to Japan in order to augment the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, managed by the United States.
This is the second time that an H3 rocket suffered a second-stage anomaly since it debuted in March 2023. That inaugural flight was the first failure for the program.
Since then, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), the rocket’s manufacturer, and JAXA have flown five successful missions with the 63-meter-tall (207 ft) rocket. The most recent of those was the launch of the HTV-X cargo spacecraft on Oct. 26, which flew to the International Space Station.
