Space One's Kairos rocket suffers catastrophic failure on inaugural flight

Kairos, a small rocket made by Japan's Space One, exploded shortly after its first launch on Wednesday as the firm tried to become the first Japanese company to put a satellite in orbit.

Moments after taking off at 11:01 a.m. (0201 GMT), the 18-meter (59-foot) rocket burst, visible on local media feeds, leaving behind a massive cloud of smoke, a fire, rocket fragments, and firefighting water sprays near the launch site.

Following the launch on the tip of the mountainous Kii Peninsula in western Japan, Space One announced that it had "terminated the flight" and was looking into flight data. After a briefing by Space One, Shuhei Kishimoto, the governor of the local government in Wakayama, informed reporters that an issue had caused the autonomous flight-termination mechanism to malfunction. He didn't say exactly what the issue was. Kishimoto also said that the fire has been put out and that there were no injuries close to the launch pad.

According to Space One, the launch is mostly automated, even down to the flight-termination function, and only needs about a dozen workers at the ground control center.

If intelligence satellites in orbit malfunction, Kairos can temporarily replace them with an experimental government satellite. After a ship entered the nearby restricted sea area, Space One decided to postpone the launch that was scheduled for Saturday.

Japan's rocket developers are rushing to produce less expensive vehicles despite the country's small size in the space race in order to meet the country's government's and other international clients' growing demand for satellite launches.

Tokyo-based Space One was established in 2018 by a consortium of Japanese companies, including Canon Electronics, IHI's aerospace engineering branch, the state-funded Development Bank of Japan, and construction firm Shimizu. Two of the biggest banks in Japan, Mitsubishi UFJ and Mizuho, are minority owners.