Elon Musk’s SpaceX is among the few companies globally that have nearly mastered rocket reuse, with the Falcon 9 serving as a leading example of how reusable rockets should be built. Now, Japanese car maker Honda is also joining the league.
On June 17, Honda announced that it had successfully conducted a launch and landing test of an experimental reusable rocket. Compared to the Falcon 9, the company’s rocket is pretty small, measuring 6.3 metres in length and having a dry and wet weight of 900 kg and 1,312 kg, respectively. Also, the rocket only reached an altitude of nearly 300 metres.
In a press release, Honda said that the launch and landing test was conducted “with an aim to demonstrate key technologies essential for rocket reusability”, like flight stability during the ascent and descent stage and landing capabilities.
It was launched from the Honda facility in Taiki Town, Hiroo District, Hokkaido Prefecture in Japan, which is often referred to as the space town. The company added that the rocket, which had a flight duration of 56.6 seconds, reached an altitude of 271.4 metres and landed within 37 cm of the target touchdown point. The company added that its reusable launch vehicle is “still in the fundamental research phase.”
And while Honda is yet to clarify how it will commercialise the rocket technology and what the boosters will be used for, the company has said that it will now work on a suborbital launch by 2029. For those wondering, suborbital flights don’t go into the Earth’s orbit but touch the edge of space at a height of around 65 miles.
However, the company did suggest that its rocket might be used to launch Earth observation satellites to keep an eye out on extreme weather, check the effect of global warming and someday launch a satellite constellation like Starlink.
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This may not sound like a big deal, but it is the first time a company outside of the United States and China has successfully tested a reusable rocket. Compared to other space companies and startups, which have been working on space technologies for decades, Honda is pretty new. The recent launch puts Honda in competition with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, which have successfully tested reusable rockets to reach Earth’s orbit.
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