Interstellar Technologies, a Japanese start-up company has attempted to launch a 32-foot rocket on June 30. The rocket, named MOMO-2, unfortunately crashed back to Earth after only a few moments.
Luckily, it was not occupied by crew and no one was injured.
At the moment, Interstellar has not commented on what might have caused the rocket to crash.
This marks the company’s second attempt at an inexpensive launch, with the first MOMO failing to reach target altitude of 100km when communication loss caused the rocket to shut down the engine. It was estimated it only reached an altitude of roughly around 20km.
The company aims to put a satellite in Earth’s low orbit by 2020, so this recent development (or lack of it) is not good news for them.
In the aftermath of the incident, Takahiro Inagawa, the company’s president has stated for the South China Morning Post that:
“We could not accomplish what we were expected to do. I feel sorry for that. I feel that I would like to keep giving it a shot.”
Intertsellar Technologies does not seem to want to give up but the pressure on the company builds up as they are, at the moment, the only ones who can give Japan a shot in the spaceflight race.
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