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Japan successfully launched Saturday the world's smallest satellite-carrying rocket
| ..smallest rocket to ever put an object in orbit around Earth.
The SS-520-5 booster is based on Japan’s SS-520 sounding rocket, a two-stage vehicle developed by IHI Aerospace and JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, which has flown twice on suborbital research missions from Uchinoura and Svalbard, Norway, in 1998 and 2000.
The SS-520 is designed to propel more than 300 pounds (140 kilograms) of science research instrumentation to an altitude of nearly...
| 500 miles (800 kilometers) for a few minutes of exposure to space before falling back to Earth.
Engineers added a third stage on top of the basic SS-520 booster to give it the capability to reach orbital speeds of more than 17,000 mph (27,000 kilometers per hour).
The SS-520-5 weighed nearly 2.9 tons (2.6 metric tons) at launch, with nearly 2.2 tons (2 metric tons) of that weight made up of pre-packed solid propellants. The SS-520-5’s first stage, fitted with spin-stabilizing..
| ..fins, was loaded with nearly 3,500 pounds (1,587 kilograms) of HTPB solid fuel.
A gaseous nitrogen thruster package was designed to keep the SS-520-5 rocket pointed correctly during a one-and-a-half minute coast phase between the launcher’s first and second stage burns.
The second and third stages consumed 716 pounds (325 kilograms) and 172 pounds (78 kilograms) of propellant, respectively.
| The rocket targeted an orbit ranging between 111 miles (180 kilometers) and 932 miles (1,500 kilometers) in altitude, with an inclination of 31 degrees.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/02/02/ss-520-5-tricom-1r-test-launch/
| So cute,I want to hug satellite-chan
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| A modified sounding rocket originally designed to loft science instruments on high-altitude suborbital arcs blasted off Saturday from the Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan and soared into orbit to become the world’s smallest satellite launcher.
Standing just 31 feet (9.5 meters) tall and spanning around 20 inches (52 centimeters) in diameter, the SS-520-5 rocket was modest by launcher standards. With Saturday’s successful flight, the solid-fueled booster became the..