Article Posted on : - Sep 02, 2010

The S-520 sounding rocket is one of the three sounding rockets Japan tests. The other two are S-310 and SS-520. A JAXA photo

TOKYO (BNS): Japan has successfully launched its sounding rocket S-520-25 to conduct scientific tests in upper atmosphere.

The rocket was launched from the Uchinoura Space Center on August 31.

“The S-520-25 was designated to conduct basic experiments on the electro-dynamic tether (EDT) in the ionosphere and to control the attitude of a robot using a tether under the micro-gravity environment while the rocket was making a sub-orbit flight for about 10 minutes to reach its maximum altitude of some 300 km,” Japanese Space Agency JAXA said.

The rocket flew “normally” and after 58 minutes of lift off, the plasma measurement probe was deployed to start observations. The vehicle successfully completed plasma collection experiment.

At 297 seconds, the Tethered Space Robot (TSR) was separated from the auxiliary unit of the rocket and its attitude was controlled by the TSR arm until 310 seconds after liftoff, the space agency said.

The rocket reached a maximum altitude of 309 km at 283 seconds after liftoff, completed all observation projects, and fell down to the ocean south-east of Uchinoura.

The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of Japan has been conducting sounding rocket tests for astrophysical observation, upper atmospheric studies, space plasma physics, etc. for scientific research helpful in conducting space programmes.