{"id":962,"date":"2024-11-16T09:29:44","date_gmt":"2024-11-16T09:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=962"},"modified":"2024-11-16T09:29:44","modified_gmt":"2024-11-16T09:29:44","slug":"japan-launches-kirameki-3-military-communications-satellite-with-h3-rocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=962","title":{"rendered":"Japan launches Kirameki 3 military communications satellite with H3 rocket"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Japan launched the Kirameki 3 communications satellite for defense purposes early Monday with the fourth flight of the H3 rocket.<\/p>\n<p>The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) H3 rocket lifted off at 1:48 a.m. Eastern (0648 UTC) on Nov. 4, rising into thick clouds and rain above the Tanegashima Space Center.<\/p>\n<p>The classified Kirameki 3 satellite was deployed just 29 minutes into the flight, marking a mission&#8217;s success. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) webcast ended shortly after the event, accompanied by applause from mission control. The spacecraft will continue towards its eventual destination in geostationary orbit.<\/p>\n<p>The two-stage H3 next-generation rocket is to succeed the H-2A, which has a single flight remaining. The H3 will be the country\u2019s workhorse for civilian and military missions. These will include exploration missions and ISS resupply with the HTV-X cargo spacecraft.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"X\u30d0\u30f3\u30c9\u9632\u885b\u901a\u4fe1\u885b\u661f\u300c\u304d\u3089\u3081\u304d3\u53f7\u300d\uff0fH3\u30ed\u30b1\u30c3\u30c84\u53f7\u6a5f\u6253\u4e0a\u3052\u30e9\u30a4\u30d6\u4e2d\u7d99\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/O4-8AoaSzbQ?start=2862&amp;feature=oembed\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The H3 comes in configurations with no solid rocket boosters, two SRBs, or four SRBs for higher payload needs. The latter two variants can also utilize an elongated payload fairing.<\/p>\n<p>The expendable rocket was designed to be more cost-effective and therefore competitive on the international commercial launch market.<\/p>\n<p>After numerous delays, the H3\u2019s inaugural launch in March 2023 suffered a second-stage engine failure, leading controllers to issue a destruct command to destroy the stage and its ALOS-3 payload.<\/p>\n<p>It received a boost in recent months with the announcements that the H3 will launch the\u00a0Emirati asteroid mission, currently scheduled for 2028. Eutelsat in September announced it had signed a contract to use multiple H3 rockets from 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Monday\u2019s mission follows the launch of the\u00a0ALOS-4\u00a0advanced Earth observation satellite on the third H3 rocket four months ago. The launch was Japan\u2019s sixth overall in 2024, with the previous launch seeing the\u00a0IGS Radar 8\u00a0satellite launched on the penultimate H-2A rocket in September.<\/p>\n<p>The privately developed Japanese Kairos rocket from Space One\u00a0exploded seconds after liftoff\u00a0in March. The company is now targeting a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.space-one.co.jp\/news\/news_20241009_e.html\">second flight<\/a>\u00a0late Eastern Dec. 13.<\/p>\n<p>Other Japanese spaceflight activities include the Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J), launched on a Falcon 9 in February, and launch of the StriX radar satellites for Japanese company Synspective on Rocket Lab Electron rockets. A Falcon 9 also launched the joint ESA-JAXA EarthCARE mission.\u00a0The\u00a0second lunar lander\u00a0for private firm ispace is set for December. The mission will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Japan launched the Kirameki 3 communications satellite for defense purposes early Monday with the fourth flight of the H3 rocket. The Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) H3 rocket lifted off at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[60,131],"class_list":["post-962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-japan","tag-kirameki-3"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Japan-Kirameki-3.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=962"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":985,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/962\/revisions\/985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}