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The Maiden Flight of the World’s Tiniest Orbital Rocket Ends in Failure

The 32-foot-tall rocket was developed to meet a growing demand for microsatellite launches.
SS-520-4 ready for launch on Sunday, January 15. Image: NVS

On Sunday, the Japanese space agency (JAXA) attempted to launch its experimental SS-520-4 rocket for the first time. Measuring 9.5 meters (32 feet) tall, about the size of a telephone pole, the rocket is the world's smallest and lightest booster designed to deliver satellites into orbit.

Unfortunately for JAXA, the maiden flight of this adorably tiny vehicle ended in failure. While the initial liftoff sequence and first stage performed normally, its communications system suffered a glitch and ceased transmissions about 20 seconds after the rocket blasted off from the Uchinoura Space Center, located near the town of Kimotsuki, in Kagoshima Prefecture.

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The SS-520-4 was carrying an Earth-observation microsatellite orbital called TRICOM-1, a CubeSat-style spacecraft weighing 6.6 pounds, developed by researchers at the University of Tokyo. After the abort sequence, both the rocket and the satellite plummeted into the sea southeast of the space center, and have not been recovered.

Video: Satoshi Harada/YouTube

"The cause of the failure is not known at all yet," Shinya Matsuura, an expert on JAXA, told The Japan Times. "All we can do is just analyze the data we got until communications were disrupted. I hope they won't be discouraged and will try another launch, because demand for launches of minisatellites is growing worldwide."

READ MORE: The Race to Build Teeny Tiny Satellite Thrusters

While JAXA is the first to have tested out one of these specialized nano-satellite launchers, it is not the only organization developing orbital launch capabilities specifically for microsatellites, especially the popular CubeSat spacecraft platform. Several private spaceflight companies are also working on models to cater to this emerging market, including Virgin Galactic, Garvey Spacecraft, and Ventions LLC.

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