Space One Co., a private Japanese company, has pushed the launch date for one of its rockets for today, March 9th, due to a small vessel entering the downrange hazard area.
The company set the rocket’s original launch time for 11:01 a.m. local time, however, the launch was delayed by sixteen minutes due to the ship entering the hazardous area. The company then cancelled the launch and has not provided a new launch date.
The postponed launch involved the company’s 59-foot (18-meter) long Kairos rocket taking off from the Space Port Kii in the western prefecture of Wakayama. The Kairos rocket’s payload included a Japanese government’s satellite used for intelligence purposes. The launch would make Space One the first private Japanese company to set down a satellite in orbit.
Three Japanese companies, Canon Electronics Inc., IHI Aerospace Co., Shimizu Corp., and the Development Bank of Japan, founded Space One in 2018 in Tokyo.
