In Japan, the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) has completed the J-1 launch vehicle as a new small-satellite launcher, with the technical assistance of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). The J-1 launch vehicle is the combination of the H-2 Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) developed by NASDA, and the upper stages (i.e., the 2nd and 3rd stages with the payload fairing) of the M-3S2 rocket developed by ISAS. By utilizing those existing stages, short-time and cost-effective development were realized. The payload capability of J-1 (three-staged) is to place a nearly one ton satellite into the low earth orbit, if launched eastward from the NASDA Tanegashima Space Center. The first J-1 mission (test flight) was to inject an experimental vehicle called HYFLEX (Hypersonic Flight Experiment) into a suborbital flight path with the two-staged configuration. It was launched at 8:00 (JST), February 12, 1996; the flight path was almost nominal and all the rocket subsystems and guidance from the ground station functioned well, with the HYFLEX injection accuracy being almost nominal. Thus the J-1 test flight was very successful.
J-1ロケットの開発と試験機1号機の飛行結果
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