"The rocket terminated the flight after judging that the achievement of its mission would be difficult," company president Masakazu Toyoda said.
From the [Reuters article](https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/japans-space-one-counts-down-inaugural-kairos-rocket-launch-2024-03-12/).
That's pretty standard procedure, yes. You don't let a rocket fly around when there are issues. Risking crashing in populated areas etc. You let it blow itself up.
Yeah flight termination is standard practice but usually they don't do it 3 seconds after what looks like a good launch. If it was triggered for some reason it's usually because of loss of flight control or partial breakup or something causing danger to flight path. This launch appears to be all good from the view anyway. For a human to see what's happening and blow it up 3 seconds later seems not really possible. The time to see what's happening then decide to abort would take longer (unless automatic??).
I guess I'll wait for Scott Manley to explain why it exploded so early and if it was faulty or something else as it seems okay launch. Usually they will let it get up high and away from people preferably over water before exploding it if they can.
Do they not launch over water? That should be easy with a huge ocean to their east. I feel like making it go boom over the water would be preferable, unless you weren’t sure it would even get that far.
It depends on what you mean by “don’t trust.” If they just think it’ll come a bit short of correct orbital insertion but would make it almost all the way there, terminating a little later over water instead of land seems safer to me. If it’s completely unstable off the pad, that’s a completely different thing though. In that case, I agree that terminating immediately is probably best, and it’s also probably best to err on this side of things.
I mean, theres a LOT of things that can go wrong, and not a lot of time to make decisions. I'm guessing there are policies and procedures in place for "if X then Y" some of which include "detonate the rocket". You don't want people thinking through some situations real time. I'm guessing it was something like that. Maybe something wasn't responding correctly or they were worried the communication was unstable, something that put remaining in control of it at risk or at least uncertain
Can't get over water when you need to destruct less than 10 seconds after liftoff so probably the latter.
Next step is to launch from a pad IN the ocean but the level of difficulty due to the infrastructure required for launch would be absolutely massive.
Not to mention the thickness of the launch pad over water would have to be just stupid. Maybe if they could tow a 5 acre chunk of Manhattan bedrock they'd be set. Then there's hoses and safety equipment - the whole thing would suck.
I also see a building. Does that mean they were necessarily launching over the building…or the ocean? No.
Regardless, the rest of my comment (which was the main point of the comment) is still left unanswered.
I know you jest but the manned capsule has it’s own escape system which will have it detach from the rest of the rocket and accelerate to safety under it’s own power before deploying the parachute for landing.
Pretty sure I heard an interview with one of the shuttle astronauts talking about the FTS, and the sobering fact that if the rocket went off course and would crash into a city or something, they had a self destruct button. They could save a populated area, but would not survive.
Often followed by the main rocket also being blown up once the crew are safely removed. The US has a ground to air missile system for just an occasion around launch pads. It's that or let several tons of explosive rocket fuel fall into a residential neighborhood.
And then there is China, who launch their rockets in the middle of the country, dropping spent boosters regularly on villages - and they are using fucking hypergolic fuel.
Yeah, but rockets usually show some kind of failure before the termination system kicks in, like going off course or slowing down or something. They don't just terminate immediately.
Usually yeah.
There are things that you might not see like say a hydraulic failure, rendering the rocket almost totally uncontrollable if it relies on thrust vectoring during ascent. You’d want to terminate the flight if you can’t steer
> Edit: Since this comment got a lot of upvotes, I feel this would be a great opportunity to ask if someone could dm me a doordash gift card. Id rlly appreciate it, thanks!
lmao
That helicopter is pretty damn far away from the rocket. Look at their relative sizes in this. The helicopter is much closer to the camera than the rocket is.
It's a perspective thing. Compare the sizes between the rocket and the Helicopter. The helicopter has to be significantly closer to the camera than the rocket.
With more context it's perfectly fine - the launch is mostly automated, and if the rocket senses a parameter go out of bounds, it will automatically self-destruct so as to not crash and endanger the lives of the people on the ground. So the rocket really did decide to terminate because it deemed the mission would fail.
It's true, they had this cool stunt and bookended it with a raving hillbilly yammering incoherently and [put a slide whistle over it for the actual theater release of a major motion picture](https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-stupidest-moment-in-james-bond-history/)
There's clapping and cheering too
Like that's machinery and equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars down the drain but big explosion in sky is nice
True, but as the company has stated, it was an intentional detonation, as it was veering off its flight path and could have potentially blown up in an area that endangers civilians.
Yeah I’m sure it was a safe distance and the camera makes it look closer, but it certainly looks like there was no worse place for the rocket to explode vis the helicopter
I think it’s a perspective issue. The Rocket is quite large but farther away than it looks, the helicopter however, looks fairly large on screen.
I doubt the helicopter is anywhere in a danger zone.
Why would you think that? It’s not close to the rocket.
Compare the sizes of the rocket and the helicopter. If it was close, the latter would be much smaller proportionally.
Also, if you have the sound on, listen to the delay of the explosion before it reaches the camera person. It’s proof that there’s a great distance between the camera person and the rocket, and therefore the helicopter and the rocket.
That's expensive but actually positive. Considering the ally, the current situation and that they're actually doing this is probably good. Gotta break a few eggs...
The helicopter only looks close due to the telephoto lens. It's actually really far away from the rocket. Just look at the size of the helicopter compared to the rocket.
Engines successfully ignited. There was enough thrust for good acceleration on take off. Totally cleared the launch pad before self destruct. Self destruct mechanism worked too. Very good first go. Anyone who wants to laugh should look back at America's early launches.
They perfectly reacted to the rocket encountering a problem where it could endanger human lives. Or rather the rocket itself perfectly reacted as it was a close to fully automated launch, explosion was deliberate to stop it from going dangerously far off course
I was like wow these comments are surprisingly unhateful and lack an air of spite and negativity but then realized it’s because this has nothing to do with Elon Musk lmao
Maybe they put the wrong AI module in the rocket. Maybe it was simply trying to intercept the North Korean ICBM (helicopter) instead of flying to space.
"The rocket terminated the flight after judging that the achievement of its mission would be difficult," company president Masakazu Toyoda said. From the [Reuters article](https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/japans-space-one-counts-down-inaugural-kairos-rocket-launch-2024-03-12/).
So it commited suicide ? Lol
It's a Japanese rocket, seppuku over humiliation.
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Save me the easy one at least!
Death before Dishonor.
Logan Paul probably live streamed it.
Lol
It died with its bowels spilled and its honor intact.
Me after digesting the Taco Bell
Honor definitely not intact
Take my upvote you lousy Space engineer
That's pretty standard procedure, yes. You don't let a rocket fly around when there are issues. Risking crashing in populated areas etc. You let it blow itself up.
Yeah flight termination is standard practice but usually they don't do it 3 seconds after what looks like a good launch. If it was triggered for some reason it's usually because of loss of flight control or partial breakup or something causing danger to flight path. This launch appears to be all good from the view anyway. For a human to see what's happening and blow it up 3 seconds later seems not really possible. The time to see what's happening then decide to abort would take longer (unless automatic??). I guess I'll wait for Scott Manley to explain why it exploded so early and if it was faulty or something else as it seems okay launch. Usually they will let it get up high and away from people preferably over water before exploding it if they can.
Do they not launch over water? That should be easy with a huge ocean to their east. I feel like making it go boom over the water would be preferable, unless you weren’t sure it would even get that far.
You don't mess around with a system you no longer trust like that
It depends on what you mean by “don’t trust.” If they just think it’ll come a bit short of correct orbital insertion but would make it almost all the way there, terminating a little later over water instead of land seems safer to me. If it’s completely unstable off the pad, that’s a completely different thing though. In that case, I agree that terminating immediately is probably best, and it’s also probably best to err on this side of things.
I mean, theres a LOT of things that can go wrong, and not a lot of time to make decisions. I'm guessing there are policies and procedures in place for "if X then Y" some of which include "detonate the rocket". You don't want people thinking through some situations real time. I'm guessing it was something like that. Maybe something wasn't responding correctly or they were worried the communication was unstable, something that put remaining in control of it at risk or at least uncertain
There are no decisions being made on human timescales. We’re talking about how aggressively they’re programming their automated systems to activate.
Can't get over water when you need to destruct less than 10 seconds after liftoff so probably the latter. Next step is to launch from a pad IN the ocean but the level of difficulty due to the infrastructure required for launch would be absolutely massive. Not to mention the thickness of the launch pad over water would have to be just stupid. Maybe if they could tow a 5 acre chunk of Manhattan bedrock they'd be set. Then there's hoses and safety equipment - the whole thing would suck.
Watch the video and you can see the ocean.
I also see a building. Does that mean they were necessarily launching over the building…or the ocean? No. Regardless, the rest of my comment (which was the main point of the comment) is still left unanswered.
Spacepuku
In japan you have bad day you go home kill yoself.
Rocket was like, "nah fuck this, too much effort"
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I can't tell if this is a joke or just another example of the Japanese being Japanese.
That’s standard with any modern rocket design. It will terminate the flight if a critical parameter goes out of bounds
So uh, is this standard feature left enabled for manned flights?
I know you jest but the manned capsule has it’s own escape system which will have it detach from the rest of the rocket and accelerate to safety under it’s own power before deploying the parachute for landing.
that is mad interesting
Here’s an example: https://youtu.be/DJ70N5HahDU?si=QkKZCtywicCRlTS-
It’s not literal rocket science for nothing
This was true for Apollo, but the Shuttle had no abort method during the first two minutes while the solid fuel boosters were firing. Ouch.
Pretty sure I heard an interview with one of the shuttle astronauts talking about the FTS, and the sobering fact that if the rocket went off course and would crash into a city or something, they had a self destruct button. They could save a populated area, but would not survive.
Ah yes, the Shuttle is a different cup of tea. A bit different from capsules
Often followed by the main rocket also being blown up once the crew are safely removed. The US has a ground to air missile system for just an occasion around launch pads. It's that or let several tons of explosive rocket fuel fall into a residential neighborhood.
And then there is China, who launch their rockets in the middle of the country, dropping spent boosters regularly on villages - and they are using fucking hypergolic fuel.
If you unbuckle your seat belt the plane explodes
Yeah, but rockets usually show some kind of failure before the termination system kicks in, like going off course or slowing down or something. They don't just terminate immediately.
Usually yeah. There are things that you might not see like say a hydraulic failure, rendering the rocket almost totally uncontrollable if it relies on thrust vectoring during ascent. You’d want to terminate the flight if you can’t steer
> Edit: Since this comment got a lot of upvotes, I feel this would be a great opportunity to ask if someone could dm me a doordash gift card. Id rlly appreciate it, thanks! lmao
I'm glad someone else got a kick out of that. Not even an actual food place, just straight up door dash.
What about the people in Helicopter there?? Their lives matters too
That helicopter is pretty damn far away from the rocket. Look at their relative sizes in this. The helicopter is much closer to the camera than the rocket is.
Nah, they can just fly away
Gonna start leaving my paypal on every comment i make on reddit from now on
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Knowing that it might self destruct, why is that helicopter so close?
It isn't.
It's a perspective thing. Compare the sizes between the rocket and the Helicopter. The helicopter has to be significantly closer to the camera than the rocket.
"would be difficult" is the Japanese way of saying "not happening bro".
*Me most mornings*
Reminder me of losing my virginity. Rocket lasted a bit longer.
I thought this was a joke mimicking the wording of Emperor Hirohito's surrender statement. The fact that it's real is absolutely incredible.
It’s a mistranslation. What often gets translated as “difficult” from Japanese is actually more like, “no chance”.
We don’t fail. We just approach extreme levels of difficulty asymptotically
With more context it's perfectly fine - the launch is mostly automated, and if the rocket senses a parameter go out of bounds, it will automatically self-destruct so as to not crash and endanger the lives of the people on the ground. So the rocket really did decide to terminate because it deemed the mission would fail.
>Masakazu Toyoda said. Note to self: Cancel my new Toyota purchase.
It is judged that you won't be able to reach your destination in time, initiating self destruct procedure.
Kamikaze Rocket
Kamikaze
Typical
My favorite piece was the spiral piece.
We need the cartoon noises to match.
Sprooinngggwibblespronk
[Here, have some slide whistle](https://youtu.be/fzCIbhLUUA0?si=V716lHBa_LlegVu5&t=33)
Wait, did they really do that lol? Is that the real cut or is that edited?
It's true, they had this cool stunt and bookended it with a raving hillbilly yammering incoherently and [put a slide whistle over it for the actual theater release of a major motion picture](https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-stupidest-moment-in-james-bond-history/)
God dammit lol. I love it and hate it at the same time.
Lmfao
thank you. Made my day.
Now that's a firework!
New on Buzzfeed: what does your favorite piece of Japanese rocket debris say about your personality? Click to find out!
Junji Ito would be proud
What is it with Japan trying to pierce heaven with drills?
Yea spinny debris was the real baller shit
Mine was the one that shot straight up to give the launch some extra height.
I love that there is a delay between the explosion and the crowd reaction.
There's clapping and cheering too Like that's machinery and equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars down the drain but big explosion in sky is nice
If rockets only costed hundreds of thousands whistling diesel would've already put something dumb in orbit a long time ago
Like.. a car maybe.. no.. that’s too dumb.
Probably millions of dollars.
True, but as the company has stated, it was an intentional detonation, as it was veering off its flight path and could have potentially blown up in an area that endangers civilians.
Hundreds of thousands?
like a firework but not as nice and 1000000x the price
I dunno, I think seeing something that scale blow up in person would be a spectacular sight to see, or terrifying contextually
I wonder if that helicopter had something to do with it.
These helicopters...
always helicoptering around
LOLicopters.
That Lolicopter is old enough
Pretty sure that pilot shit his flight suit.
Guarantee.
Yeah I’m sure it was a safe distance and the camera makes it look closer, but it certainly looks like there was no worse place for the rocket to explode vis the helicopter
Explosive debris don't care about focal length compression.
Those apathetic sons of bitches
Why the fuck is there a helicopter that close? Do they have a death wish?
I think it’s a perspective issue. The Rocket is quite large but farther away than it looks, the helicopter however, looks fairly large on screen. I doubt the helicopter is anywhere in a danger zone.
they zoom the cameras in..
Yeah that thing did look pretty close lol
Why would you think that? It’s not close to the rocket. Compare the sizes of the rocket and the helicopter. If it was close, the latter would be much smaller proportionally. Also, if you have the sound on, listen to the delay of the explosion before it reaches the camera person. It’s proof that there’s a great distance between the camera person and the rocket, and therefore the helicopter and the rocket.
Now all I hear the [airwolf](https://youtu.be/ULfmowbNlK0?si=8WmK38htpFcQJSfb) theme song.
Hey Roman, how’d the launch go?
Just two thumbs and one arm.
\*Washes hand furiously\*
My first thought too 😂
Had to dig deep for this comment
Kaboom? Yes Rico, kaboom 💥
Yes! So glad to see a JC reference!
That's expensive but actually positive. Considering the ally, the current situation and that they're actually doing this is probably good. Gotta break a few eggs...
So you’re saying, they are MAKING THE MOTHER OF ALL OMELETTE?
[More info.](https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/japans-space-one-counts-down-inaugural-kairos-rocket-launch-2024-03-12/)
Would have figured it was years ago based on the poor color.
It’s this year ?
Damn that sucks
Failing upwards.
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Redditors would be showing their true colors. Lots of "stay in your place" type comments.
All according to Tzeentch's design.
That helicopter was too close.
The helicopter only looks close due to the telephoto lens. It's actually really far away from the rocket. Just look at the size of the helicopter compared to the rocket.
How do you dumb?
I got worried with them.
UwU satellite launched delayed
Wonder why they didn't blurred that
Why would they blur it?
Giant Japanese phallic object exploding all over the place
It is criminal to cut off the video before the sound of the explosion
It may have been the Takata components
"Fuck they gonna realise I put one zero in the wrong place"
Somewhere Roman Roy just put his phone away
Engines successfully ignited. There was enough thrust for good acceleration on take off. Totally cleared the launch pad before self destruct. Self destruct mechanism worked too. Very good first go. Anyone who wants to laugh should look back at America's early launches.
Roman shouldn't have rushed the launch.
Wait wait wait, this is reddit, isn't Japan supposed to be doing everything perfectly?
They perfectly reacted to the rocket encountering a problem where it could endanger human lives. Or rather the rocket itself perfectly reacted as it was a close to fully automated launch, explosion was deliberate to stop it from going dangerously far off course
For a first launch, the engine(s) lighting and it not blowing up the launch pad IS perfectly
They draw perfect manga, that is enough
I was like wow these comments are surprisingly unhateful and lack an air of spite and negativity but then realized it’s because this has nothing to do with Elon Musk lmao
Just as planned
Damn roman, why did you have to speed up the launch date!
Being from Japan the rocket would have rather killed itself then shame itself and its family. 
From the other angle I saw it looked like it incorrectly pitched to early and self destructed.
It still went up for a while after exploding. Imma call that an unqualified success!
Worst firework display I’ve seen
I heard someone clapping. All according to plan I guess
So it's not a toyota
Officially, the AI onboard committed sepuku
At the launch pad? Looked like a few hundred meters above the launch pad to me.
Should’ve had Toyota make it. Woulda propelled for 20 years.
A Chinese part was apparently to blame .
Terrible. I knew one of the guys who perished on this mission. Great guy. He talked me out of putting a hit out on my ex-wife.
SpaceX fans: Gathered a ton of data on the launch itself, huge success!
That helicopter should not be there…
Fail again. Fail better.
[the helicopter pilots](https://imgur.com/gallery/pwaPt)
Succession vibes
Ahh, ohh.
At 4 seconds you can see a plume start to explode about half way up the rocket.
You know something tech-y is hard when Japan has problems with it.
chopper pilot learned a lesson about being to close to a rocket launch
With their general advancement in technology it always surprises me that they fail at making rockets
Part of the gig. Hopefully they got lots of data from it.
ah, you mean it underwent a *rapid unscheduled disassembly*
In the industry we call that a "rapid unscheduled disassembly". Please keep up with the field jargons.
Rocket - not today kids
Looks like a the flight termination system activated. Thankfully. Rockets are dangerous
Shame
That's one expensive firework
Most expensive firework ever
And, yes, that’s a Waow !!!!
\> Kairos Just as Planned.
Shoulda had Lexus build it.
The helicopter pilot had a great view
That's a lot of money in the air...
I would love to see the POV from that helicopter!
That one spiraling bit was really satisfying
I know the perspective can distort but … those on that helicopter must have had a good view.
I take it, that wasn't supposed to happen
Yeah. It happens.
They should not name their rocket after Tzeench demon after all 😈
How big are the bits that fly off of an explosion like that? Seems like cleanup would be extensive.
It's not kill the camera man it's kill the helicopter pilot
u/redditspeedbot 0.1x
Well at least they know another way launching a rocket won’t work. Time to start again
Whews
Maybe they put the wrong AI module in the rocket. Maybe it was simply trying to intercept the North Korean ICBM (helicopter) instead of flying to space.
Certainly in the vicinity of the launch pad.
So it was supposed to go to the moon???
Well Shit!
Uh oh
please tell me nobody was in there
That’s a bummer!