The launch was supposed to send the rocket carrying observational equipment
to an altitude of over 100 kilometres (62 miles) (AFP Photo/JIJI PRESS)
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Tokyo (AFP)
- A rocket developed by a maverick Japanese entrepreneur and convicted
fraudster exploded shortly after liftoff Saturday, in a major blow to his bid
to send Japan's first privately backed rocket into space.
Interstellar
Technologies, founded by popular internet service provider Livedoor's creator
Takafumi Horie, launched the unmanned rocket, MOMO-2, at around 5:30 am (2030
GMT Friday) from a test site in Taiki, southern Hokkaido.
But
television footage showed the 10-metre (33-foot) rocket crashing back down to
the launch pad seconds after liftoff and bursting into flames.
No injuries
were reported in the spectacular explosion.
The launch
was supposed to send the rocket carrying observational equipment to an altitude
of over 100 kilometres (62 miles).
The failure
follows a previous setback in July last year, when engineers lost contact with
a rocket about a minute after it launched.
Interstellar
Technologies said it would continue its rocket development programme after
analysing the latest failure.
The
outlandish, Ferrari-driving Horie -- who helped drive Japan's shift to an
information-based economy in the late 1990s and the early 2000s but later spent
nearly two years in jail for accounting fraud -- founded Interstellar in 2013.
However, privately
backed efforts to explore space from Japan have so far failed to compete with
the government-run Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
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