First successful launch of Interstellar Technologies' MOMO sounding rocket (first private Japanese rocket in space)

[Pipcard]

With a countdown voiced by none other than the virtual singer, Hatsune Miku

Countdown begins at 1:39:00, launch at 1:44:00

I bet this won't get as much attention as the last time they tried to launch it, and it crashed only a few seconds after takeoff.

 

Edited May 3, 2019 by Pipcard

[Cunjo Carl]

I'm so happy they made it! I wasn't even sure they'd get another shot given they were crowd funded, so to suddenly hear about them breaking the Karman line is amazing!

I guess a bit more about the rocket- It's called MOMO. Ostensibly the name is a reference to a reading of word "100-", as in "This rocket's going up 100-km" , but the same pronunciation also means "Peaches", and given Interstellar Technologies has had rockets named "Strawberry" and "Snow Sparkle", I think it's pretty clear what they were really going for. Really, it's hard not to root for a rocket named Peaches. Momo is a 1 tonne sounding rocket with a 1,200kgF pintle engine running on LOX and Ethanol of all things. It's designed to provide about 5 minutes of microgravity to a 20kg payload (a comparable mission to New Shepard), while also acting as a stepping stone for their upcoming microsat launcher, the Zero. The first two launch attempts of Momo rockets were less than successful, so it was great to see a success for number 3.

After watching their launch, I'm starting to dig back through the live stream. Just for the heck of it, I'll try to keep a translation log going here, but I need to skip town for a couple days and haven't made it very far yet.

Spoiler

First note, I am not good at Japanese. But, I have ears and a dictionary, so I try to make it work! Reader beware. Also, I'll just be providing a synopsis, not a full translation.

7:00  
They moved the rocket out from the hanger to the launch pad yesterday
[[[Something about liquid oxygen. I think it's in the tanker trucks?]]]
Weather's shaping up well, and as long as it stays calm and the haze lifts they'll do an early launch
9:00
It'll be brighter in time for the launch
Zooming in we can see the rocket now has a read head. This is Momo 2... wait, Momo 3!
It's about 10 meters tall and will be launching from Sky Hills (Ed. Their Hokkaido launch site)
The camera is zoomed in from 4 kilometers away! And that's how we'll do the shoot during the launch.
10:15
Showing with the zoom pulled back. (Ed. Wowza, that camera.)
And we're going to be filming it from back here this time.
11:00
For regular viewers this will be the same old explanation but for our new comers we'd like to provide an explanation of the "Shift to Space-Grade Momo3" (Ed. apparently the full name of the rocket)

We're Interstellar Technologies. We launch rockets. There's 22 of us now!
[[[Operating under Mr. Horie???]]]
[Explains various non-technical personnel and company history. Can't translate]
13:30
Rocket on the left's Momo. It's a sounding rocket. It can achieve a 100 kilometer apogee.
We have an upcoming development that'll do small sats, a launch system called Zero. We're doing that as our next version. As for how sounding rockets and small sat rockets differ, sounding rockets will apogee at 100 kilometers because above 100 kilometers, we can call it space. But then unable to reach orbit, they'll fall on their own and return back to the ground.
A small sat rocket after reaching 100 kilometers will speed up to 7km/s

To be continued.