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Japan Controls Rocket Launch With Just 8 People and 2 Laptops

Posted by Soulskill on from the can't-even-make-a-baseball-team-out-of-that dept.

SpaceGhost writes "Sky News reports that the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) has launched an orbital telescope on a new generation rocket from the Uchinoura Space Centre in Kagoshima, in southwestern Japan. The Epsilon rocket uses an onboard AI for autonomous launch checks by the rocket itself (launch video). A product of renewed focus on reducing costs, the new vehicle required two laptops and a launch team of eight, compared to the 150 people needed to launch the previous platform, the M-5. Because of the reduced launch team and ease of construction, production and launch costs of the Epsilon are roughly half that of the M-5. The payload, a SPRINT-A telescope, is designed for planetary observation."

57 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. They are using only 5 people and a PS4... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...to control Fukushima.

    Japanese efficiency wins again.

    1. Re:They are using only 5 people and a PS4... by durrr · · Score: 5, Funny

      Japan have a company called Cyberdyne.
      Japanese rocket launches are AI controlled.

      I see where this is going.

    2. Re:They are using only 5 people and a PS4... by nojayuk · · Score: 2

      The British military use a satellite communications system called Skynet. Nothing could possibly go worng...

  2. Almost 94.7%! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Meanwhile in America... 45%? Please... Don't make me laugh!

    From 150 people to 8! That's almost 94.7% gone. See that, America? That's how you do it...

    1. Re: Almost 94.7%! by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Oh, shriekingly funny!

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  3. Re:And in 20 years.. by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

    There is a Hentai joke in here somewhere, but I'm too scared to try.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  4. Re:And in 20 years.. by jovius · · Score: 1

    The pill dispenser made me think about the accompanying pet robot shaped like Pac Man.

  5. So.... by ZipXap · · Score: 5, Funny

    It now takes less people to launch a Japanese rocket than to maintain a Windows server in the data center....

    1. Re:So.... by RabidReindeer · · Score: 5, Funny

      It now takes less people to launch a Japanese rocket than to maintain a Windows server in the data center....

      That's because the rocket is less likely to careen off-course and explode.

    2. Re:So.... by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 2

      High five! There's your problem, you could do it with 2 sober or 3 just buzzed.

      --
      This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
    3. Re:So.... by kermidge · · Score: 1

      That's odd, I'd long thought there was still a difference between career and careen.

      Well, that's alright. As English contracts, a smaller vocabulary is easier to carry around; I've lost thousands of words since the 70's and I feel lighter.

      Got a chuckle from your comment, thanks for that.

    4. Re:So.... by gagol · · Score: 1

      It vary per buzz: coke, pot, beer, they will generate different metrics.

      --
      Tomorrow is another day...
    5. Re:So.... by Provocateur · · Score: 1

      But if I called just one of them on their cell phone, and asked him for directions to North Korea., will the new headline read '5 people launch missile to Pyongyang'?

      --
      WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
    6. Re:So.... by RabidReindeer · · Score: 1

      That's odd, I'd long thought there was still a difference between career and careen.

      Well, that's alright. As English contracts, a smaller vocabulary is easier to carry around; I've lost thousands of words since the 70's and I feel lighter.

      Got a chuckle from your comment, thanks for that.

      There is. To "careen" you tilt. To "career", you speed up. Since the rocket's already careering, what you're more concerned about is the careening.

    7. Re:So.... by kermidge · · Score: 1

      Ah, my lapse. Tnx.

  6. Decades late to the party... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The USN boomer force was launching sixteen missiles with just twenty odd people as far back as 1960. (Yes, there were other people on the boat, but they were no more part of the launch crew than the crane operators at Uchinoura.) Today, it's twenty four missiles with the same crew.

    1. Re:Decades late to the party... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but you failed to mention how many laptops they were using. Seeing as how one of the main points here was that, instead of using huge, stationary appliances, they were able to rely on only 2 laptops to do the job adequately, I feel like what you're saying doesn't really invalidate this launch.

      Also, keep in mind that "20 something" is still over twice as many people as 8.

    2. Re:Decades late to the party... by EdgePenguin · · Score: 1

      Placing a satellite in an exact orbit requires more precision than 1960s SLBMs could muster, as well as more power.

    3. Re:Decades late to the party... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      That's why I pointed out today's figures as well - because they have that kind of precision. Not that precision or power are in any way related to the number of launch control crew required in the first place.

    4. Re:Decades late to the party... by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      The USN boomer force was launching sixteen missiles with just twenty odd people as far back as 1960. (Yes, there were other people on the boat, but they were no more part of the launch crew than the crane operators at Uchinoura.) Today, it's twenty four missiles with the same crew.

      Missiles are expendable. A certain percentage (30% or so?) of malfunctions (or simply non-hits) is expected. In space launches, you often have unique cargo, and even though there's insurance, you really don't want to cash it in.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    5. Re:Decades late to the party... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Missiles are expendable. A certain percentage (30% or so?) of malfunctions (or simply non-hits) is expected.

      Actually, no. At least on the strategic side of the house, 98-99% plus were expected to hit their targets. (Which is about the same percentage of successes as space launches.) The D5, which has had over a hundred launches, had 100% success.

    6. Re:Decades late to the party... by kermidge · · Score: 1

      To add to what DerekLyons has posted, the cep (circular error probable, used to be written as C.E.P.) for an RV on the Trident II D5 with a W88 is given as 300-400ft. If memory serves that's considered effective against hardened targets.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II gives 143 consecutive successful test flights
      https://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/slbm/d-5.htm
      http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/W88.html

    7. Re:Decades late to the party... by Provocateur · · Score: 1

      Don't call them 'odd'; you could hurt their sensitivities. Let's call them talented.

      --
      WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
    8. Re:Decades late to the party... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Submariners don't have that kind of sensibility problems.

  7. Uh-oh by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    M-5 got unplugged, again? Daystrom is really going to wig out this time...

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  8. Small solid rocket by EdgePenguin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The epsilon rocket is a) tiny and b) entirely solid fueled. This kind of high level of automation might not translate well to more complex and larger rockets. Bear in mind also that this is just the launch crew. Manufacturing the rocket is likely still labour intensive.

    1. Re:Small solid rocket by MtViewGuy · · Score: 3, Informative

      True, but note that the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket doesn't need a gigantic ground crew at the launch site like you needed with the Space Shuttle. In fact, the crew needed to assemble, test and launch the United Launch Alliance Delta IV or Atlas V rockets are much smaller than they used to be, thanks to much more efficient rocket assembly buildings.

    2. Re:Small solid rocket by msobkow · · Score: 1

      NASA has never exactly been a cost-effective operation. Plus they can point to the massive teams used by the moon launches way back when and still say "See, we reduced our staff!"

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    3. Re:Small solid rocket by peragrin · · Score: 1

      while true. the thing is NASA is a government organization. it is ruled by bureaucracy and politicians , which means you need at least 3 managers, and one over sight person per 5 regular employees.

      Now considering NASA was doing all of Apollo by hand on a computer that was less advanced than a TI-83 (and that was ground side) then it makes sense.

      The trick is even with the shuttles NASA wasn't given the funding to cut employees by using automation. the Politicians refused it as it was pork for their districts.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    4. Re:Small solid rocket by Urkki · · Score: 2

      The epsilon rocket is a) tiny ..

      If it launched a payload to orbit, it can't be tiny... No rocket able to do that is tiny.

    5. Re:Small solid rocket by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Informative

      Now considering NASA was doing all of Apollo by hand on a computer that was less advanced than a TI-83 (and that was ground side) then it makes sense.

      Actually, NASA had initially several (five?) IBM 7094-II computers and later five IBM System/360 Model 75Js for the Apollo project. I also believe that both sets of machines had some nifty RT extensions both in HW and in the OS. The former ones had about 0.35 MFLOPS, and I think 32 Kwords of 36-bit memory; the latter ones had something like 1 MiB of 32-bit memory and something over 1 MFLOPS each. Your TI-83, on the other hand, has 32 KB of memory - a quarter the core memory of a 7094-II - and I can't imagine its 6 MHz Z-80 doing a double-precision floating point operation in under 20 cycles, which you'd need to match the 7094-II's performance. Don't even think about comparing your TI-83 to the Model 75 (and even *that* was outdated when NASA started receiving model 91 (that packed whopping 16 MFLOPS) tops when the first missions were going to Moon - obviously, they didn't upgrade mid-project).

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    6. Re:Small solid rocket by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Now considering NASA was doing all of Apollo by hand on a computer that was less advanced

      You've got X years to get to the moon with no launcher, lander or capsule is the sort of project that requires shitloads of people. Once you've built on the shoulders of giants things get easier.

      Later NASA was a victim of it's success as it became a parking lot for people like the Bush appointee aged in his mid 20s that started telling the scientists what to write. Large budgets attract people like flies, and people in power know a lot of folks that resemble flies :)

    7. Re:Small solid rocket by gagol · · Score: 1

      Americans are fat, Asians are slim? (Aiming for funny, I am fat)

      --
      Tomorrow is another day...
    8. Re:Small solid rocket by dindi · · Score: 1

      The Millennium Falcon needed no ground crew at all, just a wookie and a pistol slinging smuggler.. Who by the way shot first.

  9. It's a solid rocket booster stack by Animats · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Epsilon rocket is three stages of solid rocket booster, like an ICBM. So there's no fueling on the pad, no plumbing, no cryogenics, and no turbopumps. The launch team has a lot less to do than with liquid-fueled rockets.

    1. Re:It's a solid rocket booster stack by EdgePenguin · · Score: 1

      If it saves money, why not? I think one of Elon Musk's big money savers was not going for maximum efficiency with liquid hydrogen fuel - kerosene is obviously a lot easier to handle.

    2. Re:It's a solid rocket booster stack by LourensV · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The Epsilon rocket is three stages of solid rocket booster, like an ICBM. So there's no fueling on the pad, no plumbing, no cryogenics, and no turbopumps. The launch team has a lot less to do than with liquid-fueled rockets.

      They're also proudly proclaiming how quickly they can prepare the rocket for launch. I don't think that these features are coincidental, and I don't think that cost savings are the only driver behind developing this thing. North Korea's leadership is a bit unstable at times, it may have nuclear weapons, and Japan has had North Korean rockets fly over its territory before. It's a serious potential threat to them.

      Since they lost in WWII, Japan has been very pacifist, but in recent years it has begun to expand its military activities a bit, taking part in a UN peace keeping mission for instance. Outright developing an ICBM would probably go a bit too far at this point, but making a civilian rocket that can be launched at short notice with a small crew and has the range to hit North Korea could just be an acceptable compromise between mitigating the NK threat and not rocking the domestic political boat too much with overly aggressive military moves.

    3. Re:It's a solid rocket booster stack by Dereck1701 · · Score: 1

      Depends on the fuel being used, the shuttles SRBs were just lumps of ammonium perchlorate, Aluminum & iron oxide. In this case the ammonium perchlorate, a white powder, was the oxidizer.

    4. Re:It's a solid rocket booster stack by mspohr · · Score: 1

      Just light it and run!
      We don't need no stinkin' computers.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    5. Re:It's a solid rocket booster stack by sahonen · · Score: 1

      The big win with kerosene over LH2 is that kerosene is much denser, so a) your tanks can be smaller and b) it's much easier to generate high levels of thrust since you don't have to move as much liquid through your engine.

      --
      Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
    6. Re:It's a solid rocket booster stack by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      if you're pumping an oxidizer and control pumping of that then it's not really solid rocket... instead the oxidizer is mixed in.

      now this of course has it's drawbacks as you can't just turn the rocket off if you want to or control the speed by controlling flow . and then there's accidents like this http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/27/local/me-explode27 since the stuff is .. well, explosive to say the least.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    7. Re:It's a solid rocket booster stack by TCPhotography · · Score: 1

      It's convertible to a STOVL carrier, so it could operate things like Harriers and F-35Bs, which are marginally less capable than the STOBAR (Short Take Off, BArrier Recovery) ship the PLAN has and dramatically less than the conventional CATOBAR (CAtapult Take Off, BArrier Recovery) ships the USN, Marine Nationale, and the Brazilian Navy has.

  10. Any time... by PhantomHarlock · · Score: 1

    ...you see a huge hoard of people launching a spacecraft, or massive ground support infrastructure, you are looking at obsolete technology.

    A step in the right direction.

    1. Re:Any time... by Concerned+Onlooker · · Score: 1

      "...you see a huge hoard of people launching a spacecraft, or massive ground support infrastructure, you are looking at obsolete technology."

      I'm not so sure. I think what you're seeing is a public relations and media event. Really, how exciting would it have been to see any NASA launch with just a few engineers sitting around a table? People want to see the big board and lots of people wearing headsets sitting at workstations labeled with the subsystem name.

      --
      http://www.rootstrikers.org/
    2. Re:Any time... by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Or a highly experimental one, like the saturn five was, which is why it required so much support.
      The cutting edge requires more work which is why it requires more people. Established technology, like these solid rocket stages, is better understood so requires less people.

      Thus I think you are getting it backwards although I'd substitute "ready for large scale production" for your "obsolete".

  11. Space X? by quax · · Score: 2

    Anybody knows how the new commercial space launchers do in comparison?

  12. Only two laptops for eight people? by Hentes · · Score: 1

    I guess they are extreme programming fans.

    1. Re:Only two laptops for eight people? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 3, Funny

      No, that sounds like a normal programming project to me:
      2 laptops, 2 programmers
      1 Supervisor
      1 Project Manager
      1 Finance Manager
      1 Product Manager
      1 Personnel Manager
      1 Quality Manager

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  13. Good and bad by Dereck1701 · · Score: 1

    I applaud them on bringing down the launch crew requirements. Space travel is never going to open up for the masses if you need thousands of personnel to launch 7 individuals every few months. But while this rocket is bringing down the requirements on one front its severely limiting the spacecraft capabilities on another. At least according to the info I can pull up the Epsilon rocket uses solid rocket fuel for pretty much every stage (except maybe the fourth optional stage). While I am sure that massively simplifies ground crew work it also limits payload size and orbital insertion options. Switching to/utilizing liquid fuel may be a bit more complicated, but it would significantly increase capabilities. The DC-X is a pretty good example, it was liquid hydrogen/oxygen fueled (one of the more difficult fuels to work with) but it only required a crew of 14. Going full LOX/LH2 wouldn't be necessary either, Methane or kerosene would provide much of the advantages and few of the difficulties of LH2.

  14. D5 success rate != 100% by ridgecritter · · Score: 1

    The first one failed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II

    1. Re:D5 success rate != 100% by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Yeah, just pretend I typed in what I meant to type in "The D5, which has had over a hundred operational test launches, has had 100% success". (Operational test launches are production tactical missiles, the one that failed was a PEM bird - a non tactical development missile.)

  15. Re:And in 20 years.. by EdZ · · Score: 1

    That'd be the Z-001 model, right?

  16. 150 to 8 by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    Team reduced from 150 to 8. The unlucky 142 remaining PhD will line up to become scientific journalists, producing rounds of papers about the latest molecule that will make us live longer, treat cancer, and/or obesity.

  17. Commercial vs. government control rooms. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    Anybody knows how the new commercial space launchers do in comparison?

    Don't know about the current crop. But back in the late '80s AMROC controlled their launches without the classic room-full-of-custom-consoles. Instead they hacked up their "consoles" as a GUI on one instance of the state-of-the-art windowing interface computer of the time - a Macintosh (what they'd now call a "Macintosh Classic").

    I hear that, when they showed up at Goddard for their test shot, the usual control room crew was standing around with their jaws dropped as the whole thing was run from the little screen on the little box on the single desk. B-)

    If you never heard of AMROC: They were the ones that were working with the hybrid rocket: Solid fuel (synthetic tire rubber), liquid oxidizer (liquid oxygen). Controllability of a liquid fuel, complexity halfway between solid and liquid fuel (only ONE set of plumbing, not too that must be synchronized), safety better than either (turn off the LOX and the fuel just smolders and goes out.

    They lost their mover-and-shaker founding-team member days before their first flight attempt. Then, though the engines had many successful tests, the actual flight attempt failed in about the worst possible failure modes for a hybrid: The LOX valve iced up (due to ambient moisture) and stuck at about 30% open: Not enough thrust to get off the pad, but enough slow burn energy to destroy much of the rocket and pad equipment, and they couldn't either launch or shut down. Then they went bankrupt, so there wasn't a second shot. (Their tech was sold and some of it is used in space ship one.)

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  18. Which planet? by quenda · · Score: 1

    SPRINT-A telescope, is designed for planetary observation

    Perhaps recent revelations have made me cynical, but would the planet happen to be earth?

  19. Re:4 persons per keyboard by gagol · · Score: 1

    1 on the keyboard, 1 on the mouse, both share a screen? OR 1 is blind bu type very fast, the other have excellent eyes but no hands? OR You still need bags of water to setup the physical equipment... count from 10, etc.

    --
    Tomorrow is another day...
  20. Kaizen the metaphors! by sbjornda · · Score: 1
    Now even the Rocket Scientists are being "kaizened" out of a job. Next it'll be Brain Surgeons, and then we'll be all out of metaphors for doing difficult stuff.

    --
    .nosig