Failure to launch: Japan’s Space One aborts Kairos flight after lift-off

The setback dealt a fresh blow to Japan’s efforts to establish a domestic launch industry and reduce its reliance on foreign rockets amid rising space-security needs to counter China.

Kairos “terminated the flight after judging that the achievement of its mission would be difficult,” the company said in a statement.

The 18-metre (60-foot) solid-propellant small rocket carried five experimental satellites, including from Tokyo-based ArkEdge Space and the Taiwan Space Agency.

Space One, the joint venture backed by optical electronics maker Canon, aerospace giant IHI and other Japanese conglomerates, previously launched two Kairos rockets from its Pacific coast site in 2024, but neither could successfully deploy payloads.

Live footage showed Kairos flying on a wobbly trajectory within two minutes after blasting off from the company’s private launch pad, which Shimizu, one of Space One’s first shareholders, built on the tip of the Kii peninsula in Western Japan in 2021.