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Comment by csunbird | Hacker News Reader

This is a very cool thing ! I did not even know that Japan had a space program.

I guess they are not advertising as much as NASA does.

Have you read of Akatsuki, JAXA's Venus orbiter? It suffered a grievous propulsion failure in 2010 when a pressurant valve failed, causing its large main engine to run oxidizer-rich -- its nozzle thus shattered and fell off. It was therefore unable to enter Venus orbit in 2010.

However, JAXA engineers saved the spacecraft and salvaged the mission: after five years of orbiting the sun (beyond its expected lifetime), Akatsuki's far smaller attitude-control thrusters were lit up (for 20 minutes straight!), causing it to successfully enter Venusian orbit in 2015, and it's been functioning ever since.

This is really cool! Thanks for sharing!

I am flabbergasted that you were not aware of JAXA.

How is this possible. What are people been taught?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAXA

> How is this possible. What are people been taught?

For each and every think you know, there was a time where you didn't know it.

It would be interesting, if you could give a proof by induction!

On 9 May 2003, Hayabusa (meaning, Peregrine falcon), was launched from an M-V rocket. The goal of the mission was to collect samples from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa. The craft rendezvoused with the asteroid in September 2005. It was confirmed that the spacecraft successfully landed on the asteroid in November 2005, after some initial confusion regarding the incoming data. Hayabusa returned to Earth with samples from the asteroid on 13 June 2010.

Well, to be honest, in my country, we were only taught about the space race to the moon between Russia and USA.

I already knew other countries were launching rockets/satellites to the space but I always assumed they are not for scientific reasons.

https://www.xkcd.com/1053/

Keep in mind that not everyone knows the same things. Why not just be happy that they learned something?

Hmmm. Disturbing. I’m going to leave the post in place but also feel a little embarrassed.

obligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/1053/

The intended audience is mostly China ("look at how similiar to an ICBM this space rocket is"), but the program is scientifically very useful despite that.

Japan is next door to China. I struggle to see why they'd need something as long range as an ICBM.

Due to the time it takes to prepare and launch one, liquid fueled rockets have very limited strategic or tactical relevance... The US learned this with the first generation of titan ICBMs which were stored horizontally and intended to be erected+fueled on demand for launch.

The Epsilon is a solid fuel rocket.

> look at how similiar to an ICBM this space rocket is

Nagasaki is just 800km away from Shanghai. How ICBM is relevant here is really beyond my understanding.

Was there really any question whether Japan could build an ICBM though? Russia and maybe even North Korea can make them.

Russia/the Soviet Union built the world's first ICBM [1] and has arguably the most acomplished space program in the world:

They were the first to launch a satellite, the first to put animals in orbit and the first to retrieve animals savely from orbit, first EVA, the first probe on the Moon, on Venus and on Mars, the first robotic rover, the first woman in space as well as the first hispanic and black person in space, the first space station as well as the first permamently settled one, ...

I don't think their capabilities tell us much about Japan's.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-7_Semyorka

2:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_program#List_of_p...

Why put Russia under the category of North Korea, are they not accomplished enough in the rocket department to be considered closer to the US?

Isn't the US still buying rockest from Russia for critical launches? I'd say Russia might have a bit of an edge.

The US doesn't buy rockets from Russia, ULA uses the RD-180 engine until the new Blue Origin engine is ready. The ULA rockets are eg Atlas V (uses the RS-180) and Delta IV. The Delta IV rocket and heavy lift variation uses the RS-68 [1] engine, which is US tech. Their new Vulcan rocket will use the Blue Origin engine.

SpaceX is certified for critical / national security launches and does not use Russia tech.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-68

Yeah, I meant rocket engines. I realize there's a lot more to a rocket than just the engines.

Not buying but getting people to the ISS is done with russian rockets (i.e. No space shuttle anymore)

ICBMs stand for InterContinental ballistic missile. Intercontinental being the key word. Last I checked both china and japan were on the same continent.

Lots of countries have a space program, of varying levels of capability. Even Bolivia.

But not Australia, until only the middle of last year.

Most space agencies are more prominent in their home countries than abroad. JAXA is fairly prominent in Japan.

that is surely not common. Japan is in the ISS

I work at NASA. Trust me, it's common and sad. Barely anyone here knows the existence of this amazing feat of human engineering. I guarantee if the U.S. was involved in any way, it would be everywhere.

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