Japan kills flagship rocket minutes after takeoff

(RT) ⸻ Japan's ambitions to develop a cheaper alternative to SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets suffered a significant blow on Tuesday when the country's space agency was forced to destroy its flagship H3 vehicle after its second-stage engine failed. The H3 was carrying a payload of ground-mapping technology intended to be used in disaster management scenarios. Japan's science minister, Keiko Nagaoka, issued an apology for the "extremely regrettable" incident, which she said had "fail[ed] to meet the expectations of the public and related parties." The failure of the H3 "will have a serious impact on Japan's future space policy," Osaka University space policy professor Hirotaka Watanabe told Reuters. Had the mission been successful, JAXA was planning to launch the rocket around six times per year for the next 20 years. Tokyo has also expressed its own aerospace ambitions, which include landing Japanese astronauts on the Moon.