Provided by Kyodo News
A Taiwanese rocket crashed shortly after lifting off from a private spaceport in northern Japan, failing in what would have been the first successful launch from Japanese soil of a rocket developed with foreign capital.
The 12-meter rocket dubbed "VP01" was launched by jtSPACE Co., a Japanese arm of a Taiwanese aerospace company, at 11:40 a.m. on Saturday, according to the operator of Hokkaido Spaceport.
While the rocket's first stage likely separated and splashed down in the Pacific as planned, the second stage lost stability immediately after separation and came down in a restricted-access field near the spaceport.
"The second stage was terminated after separation, as it was determined that the mission could no longer proceed," the port operator Space Cotan Co. said in a press release. No injuries were reported.
VP01 reached an altitude of 4 kilometers, significantly short of the target altitude of 100 km.
Space Cotan said the rocket was brought down by its flight termination system. CEO Yoshinori Odagiri said the company will wait for the results of an investigation into what happened to the rocket's second stage.
The test aimed to send the VP01, which measures 0.6 meter in diameter and weighs 1.4 tons, to an altitude of about 100 km, verify the rocket's performance and support the development of an orbital launch vehicle capable of carrying a satellite, according to Space Cotan.