Space One is a private space company stationed in Japan that attempted to launch its rocket, the Kairos yesterday (Wednesday, March 13th.) The rocket successfully cleared the launch tower, however, seconds later, the rocket unexpectedly exploded. The explosion was so loud that it was reportedly heard from several miles away. 

Space One

Space One is a private Japanese aerospace company, which was founded in 2018. The company has the goal of putting the first private Japanese satellite into Earth orbit. Space One is a part of Japan’s rapidly growing space exploration industry. The country has scored many victories in space in the past several years, including adding a large laboratory to the ISS in 2008 and more recently becoming the 5th country to land on the Moon. 

Space One has the goal of “providing a commercial space transportation service for sending satellites into space.”  

Kairos

The Kairos rocket is Space One’s first space launch vehicle. It stands at 60 feet and weighs over 20 tons. Even though this may seem very intimidating the Kairos is quite small compared to other rockets such as NASA’s SLS which stands at 321 feet and weighs in at around 2,610 tons. The Kairos is also fairly inexpensive, only costing 7 million. (For comparison it takes SpaceX, another private company over 60 million to launch one of their rockets.)

Yesterday was Kairos median flight, its mission was to carry Japan’s frist private satellite into a low Earth orbit. However, the spacecraft malfunctioned after it cleared 100 feet and exploded. As of today, Space One has launched an investigation, which could take several months. Although no major discoveries into what may have caused the explosion have been made yet, Space One announced the autonomous flight termination system (a system that destroys the rocket if it flies off course for the safety of people on the ground.) May have malfunctioned and activated destroying the rocket.

Sources: USA TODAY