Japan launches missiles carrying the first commercial satellite

On November 24, Japan's H-2A rocket carried a Canadian information satellite launched from the southwestern Japanese island of Tanegashima, marking the first time a commercial satellite was launched into space from This country's space base.

Japan first launched missiles carrying commercial satellites

The rocket was launched at 1550 hours (local time - 13 hours 50 minutes Vietnam time) from Tanegashima space center, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan.

The satellite H-2A carries is called Telstar 12 Vantage of Telesat Holdings Inc, Canada, with a coverage of Europe, Africa and South America.

Japanese H-2A rocket.(Source: satellitetoday.com).

The H-2A missile was only used to launch satellites for the Japanese government since its first launch in 2001.

The H-2A rocket launched this time has improved technology to bring the satellites to a farther distance, closer to Earth's geostationary orbit; and so the satellite can operate longer in the space above Earth.

The Japan Space Exploration Agency spent 9.2 billion yen (about 74.9 million USD) to improve the technology.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a company that manufactures and operates H-2A missiles, with the expectation that technological improvements will help to get more satellite launch orders, in the context of the launch market. Global fire is fierce price competition.

The price for this latest rocket launch is about 12 billion yen, still much higher than the price of a similar launch from a space base in California (USA) with Falcon 9 missiles for 8 billion yen or less .