Japan’s Epsilon Poised for Second Attempt

While most eyes are probably on California, and Sunday’s tentative maiden launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 V1.1, one of the more interesting weekends in recent aerospace history kicks off just after midnight tonight at 12:45 a.m. (1:45 p.m. Saturday Japan Standard Time) with Japan’s second attempt to launch its new Epsilon booster. JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency re-rescheduled the launch following an initial attempt on August 27th which resulted in a scrub at T-19 seconds.

Originally described as a problem with the booster’s attitude sensor, it was subsequently traced to a slight communications delay between the pad and the rocket, which is not an uncommon issue early in a launch vehicle’s history. Links for viewing the launch, which be conducted from the Uchinoura Space Center and will carry the Spectroscopic Planet Observatory for Recognition of Interaction of Atmosphere (SPRINT-A), can be found here.