The H-II rocket was a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese satellite launch system

Launch vehicle

In spaceflight, a launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket used to carry a payload from the Earth's surface into outer space. A launch system includes the launch vehicle, the launch pad and other infrastructure....

, which flew seven times between 1994 and 1999, with five successes. It was developed by NASDA in order to give Japan a capability to launch larger satellite

Satellite

In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....

s in the 1990s. It was the first two-stage liquid-fuelled rocket Japan made using only technologies developed domestically. It was superseded by the H-IIA

H-IIA

H-IIA is an active expendable launch system operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency . The liquid-fueled H-IIA rockets have been used to launch satellites into geostationary orbit, to launch a lunar orbiting spacecraft, and to launch an interplanetary...

 rocket following reliability and cost issues.

Background

Prior to H-II, NASDA had to use components licensed by the United States in its rockets. In particular, crucial technologies of the H-I

H-I

The H-I or H-1 was a Japanese liquid-fuelled carrier rocket, consisting of a licence-produced American first stage and set of booster rockets, and all-Japanese upper stages. It was launched nine times between 1986 and 1992...

 and its predecessors were from the Delta rocket

Delta rocket

Delta is a versatile family of expendable launch systems that has provided space launch capability in the United States since 1960. There have been more than 300 Delta rockets launched, with a 95 percent success rate. Two Delta launch systems – Delta II and Delta IV – are in active use...

s. The H-I did have domestically produced components, such as the LE-5 engine on the second stage and the inertial guidance system. H-II added to this by domestically developing the LE-7 liquid-fuel

Liquid rocket

A liquid-propellant rocket or a liquid rocket is a rocket engine that uses propellants in liquid form. Liquids are desirable because their reasonably high density allows the volume of the propellant tanks to be relatively low, and it is possible to use lightweight pumps to pump the propellant from...

 engine of the first stage and the solid booster rockets.

The H-II was developed under the following policies, according to a NASDA press release:

1. Develop the launch vehicle with Japanese space technology.
2. Reduce both development period and costs by utilizing developed technologies as much as possible.
3. Develop a vehicle which can be launched from the existing Tanegashima Space Center
   Tanegashima Space Center
   The is one of Japan's space development facilities. It is located on Tanegashima, an island located 115 km south of Kyūshū. It was established in 1969 when the National Space Development Agency of Japan was formed...
   
   .
4. Use design criteria which allows sufficient performance for both the main systems and subsystems. Ensure that development will be carried out properly, and safety is taken into account.

History

Development of the LE-7 engine which started in 1984 was not without hardships, and a worker died in an accidental explosion. The first engine was completed in 1994, two years behind the original schedule. In 1990, Rocket System Corporation was established to operate the launch missions after the rockets' completion.

In 1994, NASDA succeeded in launching the first H-II rocket, and succeeded in five launches by 1997. However, each launch cost 19 billion yen (190 million USD), too expensive compared to international competitors like Ariane

Ariane (rocket)

Ariane is a series of a European civilian expendable launch vehicles for space launch use. The name comes from the French spelling of the mythological character Ariadne....

. (This is in part due to the changes in exchange rates, which was 240 yen to a dollar when the project planning started in 1982, but had changed to 100 yen a dollar by 1994.) Development of the next-generation H-IIA

H-IIA

H-IIA is an active expendable launch system operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency . The liquid-fueled H-IIA rockets have been used to launch satellites into geostationary orbit, to launch a lunar orbiting spacecraft, and to launch an interplanetary...

 rockets started in order to minimize launch costs.

The successive failure of flight 5 in 1998 and flight 8 in the following year brought an end to the H-II series. To investigate the cause of the failure and to direct resources into the H-IIA, NASDA cancelled flight 7 (which was to be launched after F8 due to changes in schedule), and terminated the H-II series.

H-II flights

Flight	Date	Payload nickname	Payload	Orbit	Result
TF1 (Test Flight)	February 4, 1994	Ryūsei	OREX (Orbital Re-entry Experiment)	LEO Low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit is generally defined as an orbit within the locus extending from the Earth’s surface up to an altitude of 2,000 km...	Success
		Myōjō	VEP (Vehicle Evaluation Payload)	GTO Geostationary transfer orbit A geosynchronous transfer orbit or geostationary transfer orbit is a Hohmann transfer orbit used to reach geosynchronous or geostationary orbit....
TF2	August 28, 1994	Kiku 6	ETS-VI (Engineering Test Satellite-VI)	GEO Geosynchronous orbit A geosynchronous orbit is an orbit around the Earth with an orbital period that matches the Earth's sidereal rotation period...	Success
TF3	March 18, 1995	Himawari 5	GMS-5 (Geostationary Meteorological Satellite Geostationary meteorological satellite Himawari orGeostationary Meteorological Satellite , was a series of Japanese weather satellites operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency. The first GMS satellite was launched 14 July 1977 from Cape Canaveral. The fifth and final satellite was launched 18 March 1995 from Tanegashima... -5)	GEO	Success
			SFU (Space Flyer Unit)	LEO
F4	August 17, 1996	Midori	ADEOS (Advanced Earth Observing Satellite)	LEO	Success
		Fuji 3	Fuji OSCAR 29, JAS-2	LEO
F6	November 27, 1997		TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission is a joint space mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency designed to monitor and study tropical rainfall. The term refers to both the mission itself and the satellite that the mission uses to collect data...	LEO	Success
		Kiku 7 (Orihime & Hikoboshi)	ETS-VII (Engineering Test Satellite-VII)	LEO
F5	February 21, 1998	Kakehashi	COMETS (Communications and Broadcasting Engineering Test Satellites)	GEO	Failed to reach desired orbit
F8	November 15, 1999		MTSAT (Multi-functional Transport Satellite) Multi-Functional Transport Satellite Multifunctional Transport Satellites are a series of weather and aviation control satellites. They are geostationary satellites owned and operated by the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Japan Meteorological Agency , and provide coverage for the hemisphere centred on...	GEO	Engine malfunction, self-destructed
F7	Canceled	Midori II	ADEOS-II (Advanced Earth Observing Satellite II) ADEOS II ADEOS II was an Earth observation satellite launched by NASDA, NASA and CNES in December 2002. Its Japanese name was Midori 2, and it was the successor to the 1996 mission ADEOS I...		Canceled
			μ-LabSat

See also

• H-II Orbiting Plane
  HOPE-X
  HOPE was a Japanese experimental spaceplane project designed by a partnership between NASDA and NAL , started in the 1980s. It was positioned for most of its lifetime as one of the main Japanese contributions to the International Space Station, the other being the Japanese Experiment Module...
  
   (HOPE)
• H-II Transfer Vehicle
  H-II Transfer Vehicle
  The H-II Transfer Vehicle , called , is an unmanned resupply spacecraft used to resupply the Kibō Japanese Experiment Module and the International Space Station . The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has been working on the design since the early 1990s. The first mission, HTV-1, was originally...
  
   (HTV)
• H-II (rocket family)
  • H-IIA
    H-IIA
    H-IIA is an active expendable launch system operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency . The liquid-fueled H-IIA rockets have been used to launch satellites into geostationary orbit, to launch a lunar orbiting spacecraft, and to launch an interplanetary...
    
    
  • H-IIB
    H-IIB
    H-IIB is an expendable launch system used to launch H-II Transfer Vehicles towards the International Space Station. H-IIB rockets are liquid-fuelled with solid-fuel strap-on boosters and are launched from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan...
    
    

External links

• H-II Launch Vehicle, JAXA.