Japan tests next-best-thing to ICBM

[TimothyC]

Japan's 1st Epsilon Rocket Launches Into Space On Maiden Voyage
by Tariq Malik, Managing Editor | September 14, 2013 04:30pm ET

Japan's brand-new Epsilon rocket soared into space Saturday (Sept. 14) in a debut launch that carried a novel satellite into orbit to gaze at Venus, Mars and Jupiter.

The three-stage Epsilon rocket launched into orbit at 2 p.m. Japan Standard Time from the Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan after a three-week delay due to a technical glitch. The rocket is designed to lower the cost of space launches by using automated systems to perform its own health checks instead of relying on human operators.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency initially attempted to launch the Epsilon rocket on Aug. 27, but a computer synchronization issue forced launch controllers to abort the test flight 19 seconds before liftoff. But Saturday, the high-tech rocket performed flawlessly, launching the new SPRINT-A satellite designed to study the magnetic fields and atmospheres of solar system planets. [See photos of Japan's debut Epsilon rocket launch]

"The satellite is currently in good health," JAXA officials said in a statement. The satellite separated from the Epsilon rocket about 61 minutes after liftoff.

The SPRINT-A satellite, short for the Spectroscopic Planet Observatory for Recognition of Interaction of Atmosphere, will observe the atmospheres of Jupiter, Venus and Mars in ultraviolet light. The satellite weighs 771 pounds (350 kilograms) and is expected to spend one year.

on its primary mission.

Japan's Epsilon rocket is a 91-ton solid-fueled booster that stands 78 feet (24 meters) tall and can launch satellite weighing up to 2,646 pounds (1,200 kilograms) into low-Earth orbit.

The rocket's first stage uses a solid rocket motor based on the boosters used on Japan's liquid-fueled H-IIA launch vehicle, while the second and third stages are based on Japan's M-V rocket, which was retired in 2006. JAXA officials have said they estimated Epsilon's first flight to cost 3.8 billion yen ($38.5 million) – almost half the 7.5 billion yen ($76 million) cost for the M-V rocket.

"We would like to express our profound appreciation for the cooperation and support of all related personnel and organizations that helped contribute to the launch of the Epsilon-1," JAXA officials said.

The SPRINT-A satellite was renamed Hisaki after reaching orbit, and its name has a double meaning. First, Hisaki is the name of a cape at the tip of the Tsushiro Peninsula in the Uchinoura area and resembles the satellite's shape, JAXA officials said. The name is also a combination of "saki" (Japanese for "beyond") and "Hi" (the "sun"), because the spacecraft's targets are "beyond the sun," they added.

So, it's a three stage solid rocket launched with a minimum of personnel and equipment (and there are very very few of those that are not re-purposed ICBMs). The Japanese already have a breakout nuclear capacity (just by reprocessing their waste), and now they are demonstrating the base for an ICBM.

The Hisaki satellite is cool also.

[Vehrec]

To be fair, how hard can it be for a first-world nation to develop this technology now, more than 30 years after it's inception? I know that the knowledge and materials aren't universally available, but it seems like if the united states could have made one almost 50 years ago, the knowledge would be at least somewhat disseminated, leaking out into the environment and lowering development costs somewhat.

[Steel]

Unfortunately I think that while the basic principles of rocketry are actually quite simple, the real problem is in the detailed engineering. Without the full plans for a working rocket you can easily do a hundred reasonable seeming things that cause it to explode spectacularly.

Consider that SpaceX had their rockets all explode or fail in novel ways for many years and that was with access to NASA engineers too.

[phongn]

To be fair, how hard can it be for a first-world nation to develop this technology now, more than 30 years after it's inception? I know that the knowledge and materials aren't universally available, but it seems like if the united states could have made one almost 50 years ago, the knowledge would be at least somewhat disseminated, leaking out into the environment and lowering development costs somewhat.

Large solid rockets are not the easiest thing in the world to manufacture reliably, or keep in 'wooden' condition until launch. The US has spent a large fortune on such technology, even if it does date to the 1960s.

[PeZook]

To be fair, how hard can it be for a first-world nation to develop this technology now, more than 30 years after it's inception? I know that the knowledge and materials aren't universally available, but it seems like if the united states could have made one almost 50 years ago, the knowledge would be at least somewhat disseminated, leaking out into the environment and lowering development costs somewhat.

The costs are all in gaining operational experience. It's much like with building an aircraft carrier: building a huge ships is nothing, private companies buy supercarrier-sized cruise ships every day already ; But you don't want a huge flat-topped ship, you want a carrier, and gaining the operational experience needed to turn a boat into a warship is no easy feat.

Same principle goes for rockets: a lot of things are known and disseminated by now, but there are a lot of details in a rocket launch. For example, in the early days of US rocket development, liquid oxygen engines had a spectacular failure rate, until Von Braun (or one of his team, I forgot) noticed how the ground crews dragged LOX hoses on sand. It took Von Braun a long time to figure out how important it was to keep hoses absolutely, pristinely clean and it isn't something you can realistically foresee when starting from scratch.

Of course, Japan has a space program, so...

[cosmicalstorm]

ICBM's are expensive things to keep around, didnt Stuart use to talk about the costs of silos and the surrounding equipment. I expect improvements in technology will cause far more havoc with regards to biological warfare and possibly chemical in that it makes it more easy and available to anyone in particular. In a decade or two you might be able to buy a DNA printer and download some nice pandemics.

[Formless]

*sigh* And we've also had this discussion regarding biological weapons too. For starters they do not store well precisely because they are volatile living organisms. Second, simply having a bacterium or virus or fungus isn't enough-- you need a delivery system, just like you do with chemical weapons.

They are NOT magic pandemic spreading super science that will kill the world just by dropping a glass vial in a public place. That's a meme that greatly annoys me in case you couldn't tell. They are at least as complicated as chemical weapons, if not more so (consider that sarin has an LD50 of, what, a few milligrams? If that?). Indeed, there is a reason the US was so easily convinced to stop developing them and to destroy their stockpile.

[cosmicalstorm]

I remember those debates and I am not qualified enough to hold much of an opinion on the subject, but do you agree it is easier than building a fusion-device and an intercontinental rocket?

(I.e that improved technology in general will make activities along those lines easier than creation of nuclear devices, which will still require reactors, rockets, large scale engineering and what not.)

[Formless]

Yes. What isn't is matching the destructive power or reach of a nuke. For one thing, bioweapons can't destroy infrastructure like nukes can; nor are they something you can deliver with an ICBM. They require aircraft to get good dispersal. Which makes them irrelevant to a thread on rocketry like this one, IMO.

Basically, what irks me every time I see it is mentally coupling the word "bioweapon" with "pandemic". Even creating an endemic is tricky and beyond what your average terrorist can do, while a country would probably have the same difficulty hiding it as a chemical program (again, storage issues, delivery systems, etc.).

[Admiral Valdemar]

To produce the sorts of bioweapons that would rival nuclear bomb level destruction, but keeping the damage firmly limited to what you want to hit, would require highly developed first world tech levels, and even we can't make that sort of thing yet. The best you get from those we fear would be anthrax or various toxins from bacteria in a refined form.