Saturday\u2019s test of the MOMO-2 unmanned rocket, which was scheduled to be the first privately funded Japanese rocket to reach space, went very poorly for Interstellar Technologies\u2019 Takafumi Horie, a convicted securities fraudster who a 2014 Financial Times profile dubbed \u201cJapan\u2019s enfant terrible.\u201d Footage of the event showed the one-and-a-quarter-ton rocket disastrously failing mere seconds after it left the launch pad, falling back to<\/b>
\nSaturday\u2019s test of the MOMO-2 unmanned rocket, which was scheduled to be the first privately funded Japanese rocket to reach space, went very poorly for Interstellar Technologies\u2019 Takafumi Horie, a convicted securities fraudster who a 2014 Financial Times profile dubbed \u201c Japan\u2019s enfant terrible.\u201d Footage of the event showed the one-and-a-quarter-ton rocket disastrously failing mere seconds after it left the launch pad, falling back to the ground and detonating in a pretty big explosion.
Per Agence France-Presse, though no injuries were reported during the incident due to all launch staff being some 600 meters away in a secure launch center, the incident is a major setback for Horie and Interstellar:
No satellite was on board for the launch.
Photos posted to Interstellar\u2019s Facebook page showed the rocket charred and in pieces, though the company wrote there was no significant damage to the launch facilities.
The first MOMO rocket failed in July 2017, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. Engineers lost contact with the craft in midair, though it was estimated to have achieved a height of around 12.4 miles (20 kilometers).
\u201cWe have never seen a failure like this,\u201d Horie told reporters, per the Asahi Shimbun . \u201cWe are thinking about what we can do to maintain some tie to the next step even as the future remains barely visible.\u201d Takahiro Inagawa, Interstellar\u2019s president, added that current indications were that the rocket suffered some kind of engine problem.
Inagawa added that \u201cWe could not accomplish what we were expected to do. I feel sorry for that,\u201d but \u201cI feel that I would like to keep giving it a shot,\u201d the South China Morning Post wrote.
According to Engadget, while Interstellar\u2019s two failures have been high-profile, the failed 2017 launch cost just $440,000 compared to the average Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency cost of $1.8\u2013$2.7 million. One of the ways that Interstellar has tried to drive down the price of their launches has been using \u201creadily available\u201d electronic components, the Asahi Shimbun wrote, though without a successful test under their belt any cost savings remain theoretical.
[ AFP]<\/p>\n

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