Japan space agency rocket carrying 8 satellites fails

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s space agency says a rocket carrying eight satellites failed just after liftoff and had to be aborted by a self-destruction command, in the country’s first failed rocket launch in nearly 20 years. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said its Epsilon-6 rocket experienced an unidentified “abnormality” Wednesday and its flight had to be aborted less than seven minutes after takeoff from the Uchinoura Space Center in the southern Japanese prefecture of Kagoshima. The failure could be a setback for JAXA’s ambition to develop a commercial satellite launch business. The cause of the failure was still being investigated, the agency said.