TOKYO, June 12 — Japan’s space agency successfully launched its flagship H3 rocket on Friday, months after a previous mission to put a geolocation satellite into orbit ended in failure.

The H3 was developed to boost the international competitiveness of the country’s rocket industry, with the lift-off an important sign of progress as the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) aims to improve its launch success rate.

The agency is targeting up to eight H3 launches a year — still far below privately owned SpaceX, which dominates the global satellite launch market with 165 Falcon 9 orbital flights in 2025, compared to just two for H3.

Jaxa said the rocket carrying six small satellites blasted off at 9.53am from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan.

“The rocket flew according to plan and successfully placed the second stage into its intended orbit,” Jaxa president Hiroshi Yamakawa told reporters, adding that it released the six satellites.

Jaxa’s live YouTube broadcast showed scientists clapping and hugging each other in celebration.

One of the satellites is testing technology to capture space debris.

“We took last year’s failure of the H3 rocket launch very seriously,” Yamakawa said.

“We have devoted our full efforts to thoroughly investigating the cause and devising countermeasures.”

Designed for “high flexibility, high reliability, and high-cost performance”, Jaxa had toasted five previous successful launches of the H3, but there have also been two failures including the latest one in December.

Japan hopes to capitalise on the H3’s success to meet soaring global demand for satellite launches in the face of a rocket shortage.

Private companies are also racing to offer cheaper and more frequent space exploration opportunities than governments.

Space One, founded in 2018 by major businesses such as Canon Electronics and IHI Aerospace, made its third attempt to become the first private Japanese firm to put a satellite in space in March, but the mission failed.

Amid the intensifying space race, Jaxa landed in 2024 an unmanned probe on the Moon — albeit at a crooked angle — making it just the fifth country to achieve what is known as a “soft landing”.

But Tokyo-based firm ispace last year failed in its attempt to become the third private firm — and the first outside the United States — to achieve a controlled arrival on the Moon. — AFP