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Japanese Rocket Launches Its First Commercial Satellite (upi.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the up-up-and-away dept.

schwit1 writes: Using its H-IIA rocket, upgraded to lower cost, Japan launched its first commercial payload today, putting Canada's Telestar 12V into geosynchronous orbit. UPI reports: "Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency said the H-IIA rocket was upgraded for the launch, permitting the satellite to stay closer to its geostationary orbit. Tokyo's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said he hoped the launch would exhibit the quality of Japan's rocket engineering, and that the successful launch would result in more orders from other global corporations. Following the launch, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries vice president Naohiko Abe said the firm plans to actively promote the H-IIA for satellite launches."

31 comments

  1. Very surprised... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Surprised this is Japan's first commercial launch. They were easily capable of this for 20+ years.

    1. Re:Very surprised... by invictusvoyd · · Score: 2

      Whats more surprising is that India has been doing it for years now .

    2. Re:Very surprised... by rubycodez · · Score: 4, Informative

      Title is misleading, Japan has been launching satellites since the 1970s, making commercial satellites since the 1980s. Just not launching commercial satellites itself

    3. Re:Very surprised... by AHuxley · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Lots of US trade issues held back Japan. The US did not want other nations offering cheaper or better platforms so a few political and treaty obligations now face a lot of nations wanting to sell or expand on their own industrial base into the space market.
      Missile Technology Control Regime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
      "Japan's space development" and USA trade policy, "Section 301" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
      India just went its own way and made sure it could design, build and launch any system it wanted, making sure domestic design and production was well looked after.
      Another trick is to get Japan to enter a "consortium" deal to spread costs and then keep Japan buying into a shared, imported system. Japan is kept away from investing in its own specialized tooling, has to pay for development and then the import costs of a final system to pay for.

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    4. Re:Very surprised... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Japan is the 4th country to put an object in orbit, and the 5th to put an object in space.

      1. Germany (did not reach orbit)
      2. USSR
      3. USA
      4. France
      5. Japan

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    5. Re:Very surprised... by Crowd+Computing · · Score: 1

      Not just trade issues. Japan and Germany were both held back from developing independent launch capabilities as punishment for being the World War 2 aggressors. US and Russian space development were bootstrapped on top of German hardware or know-how.

      This is common knowledge by the way. Way back in the 60s, Philip K Dick speculated on what might have happened if Japan and Germany had won in The Man in the High Castle, now showing, for those too lazy to read, on the nearest Amazon cinema. In the novel, the Germans were flying regular trips to Mars and hypersonic planes from Berlin to Nazi York.

      Now imagine a timeline where Japan didn't ally itself with Germany, but just like in World War 1 made a few land grabs here and there, perhaps as Soviet Russia collapsed. With its nose relatively clean, Japan could ally itself with Britain and the US in defeating the German Reich. After the war, Japan could then become the third nation in space, after the US and the British Empire.

    6. Re:Very surprised... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thats ok. You are obviously the product of a mother-father and grandma-grandpa that are all sisters-brothers.

    7. Re:Very surprised... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      British rocket named Black Arrow did succeed in placing a single British satellite, Prospero, into orbit from a launch site in Australia in 1971. Prospero remains the only British satellite to be put into orbit using a British vehicle.

      doesn't count for some reason?

    8. Re:Very surprised... by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      the Nazi German program did indeed put satellites into space, it just relocated to the southern USA first

    9. Re:Very surprised... by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      that was the 6th country (in October 1971) to put object in orbit after USSR (1957), USA(1958), France(1965), Japan(february 1970), china (april 1970)

  2. good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good for everyone.
    It is hard to see how more people putting things in space is a bad thing (kesseler syndrome aside)

  3. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've always liked that name - Big like Godzilla (Gojira).

    1. Re:Mitsubishi Heavy Industries by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Me, not so much.

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  4. News? by quenda · · Score: 1

    Good for the rocket. Are we expecting it to go back up and launch a second satellite?

  5. Successful Raunch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Orbit Get!

  6. upgraded to lower cost by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    >> upgraded to lower cost

    You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

  7. Surprise! Surprise! by turkeydance · · Score: 0

    it dumped fuel over the USA. link: http://www.spaceweather.com/

    1. Re:Surprise! Surprise! by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

      You guys are never happy.

      Your government goes to war in the middle east to secure more oil, you complain.
      A friendly nation gives you free fuel, you complain again!

    2. Re:Surprise! Surprise! by matfud · · Score: 1

      That LOX and LH2 are really nasty when dumped into our atmosphere /sarcasm

    3. Re:Surprise! Surprise! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the US doesn't get oil from the ME in any real amounts - we take it from you at low prices and you bend over and pretend to like it because you're America's hat

      (srsly, look it up - we don't get jack or shit for oil from the ME)

  8. It's harder than that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, the military creates a lot of demand for putting stuff into orbit. Look at the US EELV rockets. Russia, Ukraine, China, and India benefit from low wages, so their rocket designs do not have to be as efficient at manufacturing. India has been launching the PSLV since the early 90s. There are not many competitors in the PSLV's payload size range. Japan took the long way by building small rockets, then license manufacturing the Delta II, before making the H-2 rocket, and then the current H-2A. The H-2A competes with the Altas V, Delta IV, Falcon 9, Soyuz, and Zenit 2 rockets.

  9. Will someone please "upgrade" the eds.? by Bearhouse · · Score: 2

    Please could someone explain what "upgraded to lower cost" mean?
    As for "upgraded for the launch"...what? Could it not lauch prior to the upgrade?
    The linked article makes no referenece to either.

    Much better information here:

    http://www.nasaspaceflight.com...

    And even here:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    1. Re:Will someone please "upgrade" the eds.? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      Engrish

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  10. Not Trade but Arms Control and Nonproliferation by Koreantoast · · Score: 1

    Trade is an issue, but it was definitely focused on nuclear nonproliferation. Given the very direct link between rockets to deliver satellites into orbit and rockets to deliver nuclear warheads, there was interest among many nations, especially as the Cold War winded down, to ensure these sorts of arms races never developed. Japan, having been on the receiving end of a nuclear weapon, had strong reasons to promote nuclear nonproliferation. At that time as well, there were hopes that with Japan signing onto limiting rocket technology, it could also help prevent nations like North Korea from chasing down the nuclear tech tree. Sadly, history didn't play out that way, but you can understand where they were coming from.