Overview
- SpaceOne said the rocket initiated a flight-termination 68.8 seconds after liftoff during first-stage burn at roughly 29 kilometers in altitude.
- Live footage showed breakup after the self-termination, and the vehicle is believed to have fallen into the Pacific about 150 kilometers south; local authorities reported no ground damage.
- None of the five payloads reached orbit, including satellites from Taiwan’s national space agency and a Tokyo high school project.
- Executives apologized at a briefing and said root-cause analysis will take time, declining to set a date for subsequent launches.
- This is the third consecutive Kairos failure since 2024, a setback for Japan’s effort to expand domestic small-satellite launch capacity.