Japan’s H-IIA Launch Vehicle to Resume Flight Next Year

Japan's primary large-scale launch vehicle, HII-A had two successful launches on August 2001 and February 2002.

Tokyo, Dec. 9/Satnews Daily/ ¾ The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced the resumption of flight activities of the H-IIA Launch Vehicle.

Reporting to Japan’s Space Activities Commission, JAXA said the resumption of the flight activities will be in preparation for the launch of the Multi-functional Transport Satellite 1 Replacement (MTSAT-1R) in the winter launch season of the fiscal year 2004. SAC promptly approved JAXA’s decision.

MTSAT is a dual mission satellite for the Japanese Ministry of Transport and the Japan Meteorological Agency and will perform air traffic control, navigation and meteorological functions.

With the approval of the resumption of H-IIA flights, MTSAT-1R launch is expected in early 2005, possibly in February next year. Space mission in Japan had been suspended since an H-2A rocket carrying a pair of spy satellites went off-course in November 2003 and had to be destroyed by mission controllers.

H-IIA, Japan’s primary large-scale launch vehicle, is designed to meet diverse launch demands, at lower cost and with a high degree of reliability, by making the best use of the H-II launch-vehicle technology. According to JAXA, the simplified design and improved efficiency of the manufacturing and launch processes of H-IIA have achieved one of the highest performance to cost ratio of launch system in the world, reducing the cost of launches by a half or more.

JAXA has four types of standard launch vehicles for different weights of payloads. In the case of H-IIA Launch Vehicle No.1 (H-IIA F1), it was four meters in diameter and 53 meters in height. The first experimental flight of the H-IIA F1 was launched in August 2001.

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