Japan postpones satellite launch -- again

TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japan, whose struggling space program has suffered a series of launch failures, faced a new setback on Wednesday when it postponed a scheduled satellite launch for the European Space Agency.

Japan's next-generation domestic rocket, the H2-A, had been set to put a satellite for the agency into orbit on its maiden launch next February, but a meeting of industry officials decided to postpone this indefinitely, said a spokesman for the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA).

"The entire launch schedule will have to be redone from scratch," he added.

Noting that the satellite, an Advanced Relay and Technology Mission Satellite (ARTEMIS), has already had its launch postponed once, he acknowledged it was possible that the European Space Agency might well give up the idea of launching the satellite with a Japanese rocket altogether.

"But this decision is still pending until we confer with our colleagues in France," he added.

Wednesday's decision was based on a number of problems that arose during the development of the H2-A, most recently a brief leak of liquid hydrogen during a combustion test in July.

It is likely to be a harsh blow for Japan's space industry, which has been fighting to regain international trust in its launch capabilities following several humiliating failures.

The worst came last November when scientists had to blow up one of the H-2A's predecessors, an H-2 rocket, eight minutes after its launch when it failed to follow its proper path.

A 10 billion yen ($92.93 million) satellite was lost as a result, and the H-2 program was abandoned a month later.

In February 1998, another unsuccessful launch cost 60 billion yen.

The space agency subsequently pinned its hopes on the new H-2A, which was also expected to reduce the sky-high costs of Japanese rocket launches. Each H-2 launch cost close to 19 billion yen, about double the cost of competitors such as the European Space Agency's Ariane rocket.

But a number of problems cropped up during the rocket's development, including a brief leak of liquid hydrogen from a fuel tank during the July test.

The series of mishaps has taken its toll.

In May, U.S. satellite maker Hughes Space and Communications, which had agreed to use Japanese rockets to launch 10 satellites, terminated the contracts because it had lost confidence in Japan's space technology.

The NASDA official tried to soft-pedal Wednesday's decision, saying that the rocket is expected to be launched as scheduled in February -- most likely carrying a dummy satellite instead of a real one -- and that the flight would yield important data.

"It is a new rocket, and while it may well succeed, it also could fail," he said. "There are certain aspects about a rocket launch which can only be confirmed by actually launching it."

The space program has long been an expensive Achilles heel for otherwise technologically adept Japan, in part because responsibility for it is divided among five government ministries.

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