Fire at the Tanegashima space center (Japan), November 26, 2024. KYODO AGENCY / VIA REUTERS It was 8:30 a.m. local time (12:30 a.m. Paris time), Tuesday, November 26, when fireballs and smoke white sky rose into the sky at the Japanese space center of Tanegashima, in the isolated department of Kagoshima, in the southwest of the archipelago. This major fire, visible on images from the public television channel NHK, and affecting the site of the Japanese space agency (JAXA), occurred while the latter was testing a solid fuel Epsilon S rocket. “There was an abnormality during today’s combustion test. We are trying to establish what happened,” JAXA said in a statement sent to Agence France-Presse. “No injuries have been reported at this time. The causes [de l’incident] are also under investigation,” she added. About thirty seconds into the test, witnessed by media stationed about 900 meters away, a loud explosion was heard, and what appeared to be a burning object flew toward the sea, NHK reported. Japan’s Sankei newspaper added that orange flames burst from the rocket’s engine placed on a horizontal platform before the explosion. Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Japan’s space ambitions thwarted by the failure of the H3 rocket Read later Successes and setbacks According to the Japanese daily Asahi, JAXA’s project to launch the Epsilon S rocket, which succeeds at Epsilon, by next March now seems almost impossible. The space agency, which succeeded last January in landing an unmanned probe on the moon, making Japan only the fifth country to achieve such a feat, has however suffered several setbacks in recent years in its rocket programs. In July 2023, an Epsilon S engine exploded during a test, approximately 50 seconds after ignition. “With the Epsilon S, rocket development is extremely important for the independence of Japan’s space development program,” Japanese government spokesperson Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Tuesday. Read also | First successful mission for the Japanese Epsilon rocket Read later JAXA succeeded in taking off in February 2024, the H3, its new flagship rocket supposed to allow Japan to compete in particular with the Falcon 9 from the American SpaceX. But this attempt followed a failure in February 2023, when the machine co-developed with the Japanese group Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) was unable to take off due to a problem with the ignition of its boosters. Then, during a second attempt in March 2023, the rocket initially successfully took off, before deviating from its trajectory due to a failure of the second stage engines. JAXA was forced to destroy it in mid-flight. A rocket from a private Japanese company also exploded in March 2024, a few seconds after its launch. Called “Kairos” and 18 meters high, this solid fuel rocket from the start-up Space One, based in Tokyo, took off with a small satellite from the Japanese government on board. But seconds after launch, the rocket turned into a ball of fire, with thick smoke filling the launch site and flaming debris from the craft falling onto the surrounding slopes. Le Monde Mémorable Test your general knowledge with the editorial staff of “Le Monde” Test your general knowledge with the editorial staff of “Le Monde” Discover After the announcement of the fire on Tuesday at the Tanegashima base, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) fell further by 4% on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, while the stock of Japanese jet manufacturer IHI dropped almost 5%. Read also | Japan puts an end to the mission of its lunar module, a year after its launch Read later Le Monde with AFP
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