Japan's launch of a satellite this month will be postponed by at least one month after a series of hitches, officials said Monday, possibly affecting the debut of a high-performance rocket next year.
The launch of an H-2 rocket, carrying a multiple-purpose satellite, will be pushed back to sometime after the middle of November, the National Space Development Agency said.
As a result, the inaugural lift-off of an H2-A rocket, a high-performance but cheaper version of the H-2, was likely to be postponed from its original date next February, press reports said.
The H2 launch had been originally planned for September 10 but was delayed by two days after a one-centimeter (0.4-inch) dent was found in a satellite cover.
But it was rescheduled again to Septembner 17 or later when problems were found in a sensor in the first-stage liquid hydrogen tank.
The agency has discovered new problems in a battery controlling the second stage of the rocket that is to carry the satellite into orbit, the officials said.
The delayed launch will be the seventh blast-off of a Japanese H-2 rocket since 1994. The satellite is to be used for weather forecasts and air traffic control.
The two-stage, liquid-fuel propulsion H-2 is the first fully-Japanese built rocket and rivals the European Ariane-4.
The space agency is developing the H2-A rocket. Experiments on H-2A engines will be conducted with the H-2 launch, the officials said.
In the last H-2 launch in February 1998, Japan suffered a major blow to its ambitious space programme as a 36-million-dollar satellite was lost in space despite a successful separation from the rocket.
The failure put the space program under fire, with the press describing the satellite as "million dollar garbage."
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