TOKYO – The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on Thursday conducted a ground test of the Epsilon S small rocket’s engine, following two consecutive failures in similar tests in recent years.<\/p>\n
The test of the 27-meter-long, solid-fuel rocket was completed as planned, marking a step toward launching an Epsilon S rocket demonstrator by the end of March.<\/p>\n
Japan’s last successful launch of an Epsilon-series rocket was in 2021.<\/p>\n
After explosions during combustion tests in 2023 and 2024, the test of the Epsilon S rocket’s second-stage engine at the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture began at 9 a.m. and lasted about 130 seconds.<\/p>\n
Since determining the causes of the two previous failures involving the new engine would take time, the test used an older M-35a second-stage motor, in which some components had been replaced with substitute materials.<\/p>\n
The M-35a was positioned horizontally for the test, during which JAXA measured thrust, temperature, strain and other data.<\/p>\n
“The data are within normal ranges, and we believe the test went well,” Project Manager Takayuki Imoto told reporters after the test.<\/p>\n
JAXA will spend about two months analyzing the collected data.<\/p>\n
Along with the H3 liquid-fueled rocket, Epsilon S is one of two core launch vehicles designated by the Japanese government as essential to maintaining the country’s independent satellite launch capability.<\/p>\n
The Epsilon S shares components and technology with the H3 rocket to reduce launch costs and improve its competitiveness in the growing satellite launch market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO – The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on Thursday conducted a ground test of the Epsilon S small…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-566054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}