Japan's Biggest Rockets - Keeping The Thor Alive
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- čas přidán 20. 03. 2024
- Japan's space program is hugely capable, they've provided one of the most important parts of the ISS, were the first to return samples from an asteroid, recently they've landed on the moon and debuted the new H-3 rocket.
But their biggest launch vehicle is a direct descendent of the American Thor/Delta rocket and while Delta is soon to be retired, Japan's H-3 has a long history ahead of it.
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A McDonnell Douglas engineer who was posted in Japan to assist them with the licensed Thor told me that in-country American engineers figured the Japanese-produced boosters would have a high failure rate. That's because of how when problems came up, one Japanese engineer wouldn't say anything which might reflect poorly on another Japanese engineer -- a cultural thing. Reliability was instead excellent, so apparently there was some alternative way in which the Japanese communicated issues that needed to be addressed (or maybe they just didn't trash each other around the Americans ; )
Probably a mix of feeding the info to the mistaken engineer (and maybe both of their managers) "off the books", and a proper independent verification system (when you are _supposed to not_ finish it by yourself, it makes it easier to hide evidence of mistakes).
That kind of culture is believed to have carried over from the WW2. It is told that people were pulled to suicide missions, not just kamikazes but all kinds of high risk missions, in order of replaceability, so those survived it learned to be irreplaceable for the sake of it. That behavior was problematic and slowly deconstructed over the decades but it's naturally more prevalent earlier.
I didn't think Mc Donnell Douglas had engineer's?
@@user-cr4sc1ht9t > learned to be irreplaceable < The joke at my company was "He's irreplaceable, so we must get rid of him. We can't afford the risk of someone who's irreplaceable deciding to leave."
@@marcmcreynolds2827 That's absolutely the right thinking, it was just hard for lots of Japanese workplaces for decades
Japan's space program is like that guy you know who could walk on to an elite sports team if he wanted, but chooses to manage an Applebee's for unknown reasons.
Beg to differ. They have flown some of the more ambitious exploration missions. H-3 lift capability is at the higher end. Japan's national module on the ISS has more volume than the USA's, and much more than the ESA's. Added to that is an attached storage module, as well as a large external experiments platform plus airlock.
@@marcmcreynolds2827Some of that was a favor to us, not so much their own priorities. They pack way more heat than they actually use.
@@dudermcdudeface3674 Now I get your meaning.
Look at the missions to asteroids and the moon landers. This is all high end stuff.
"Unknown reasons"
US restrictions on Japan's space program on developing andvanced technology until 2008
China and other country's frequent attempts to sabotage Japan's industrial organizations, cyber and otherwise.
Low political will, and therefore low budget for the space program, especially compared to NASA.
These are the main reasons, often intertwined with eachother. i don't blame Americans to not be privy of these issues, but the conceited ignorance is hillariously stereotypical.
The dogleg maneuver after booster jettison on the first H3 flight really shocked me. It sure appeared to be yawing out of control, but nope, it flew perfectly. I was mostly ready for it on the second flight, but it still looked quite odd!
Hopefully Scott you can get guided tour of their launch facility one day. On Google Maps it looks like quiet a scenic launch pad in a bay.
JAXA says Tanegashima is " the most beautiful launch pad in the world".
Nice segment. Funny enough, I came across this after I had actually visited the campus of the JAXA Institute of Space and Astronautical Science today, in Sagamihara. They have a modest museum and store (where the were selling models of H-2 and H-3 rockets). So great to receive this history after going through their exhibits (which included a M-V rocket fairing with a satellite mock up, a reproduction of the SLIM probe, a sample of the Ryugu asteroid, etc.).
I see Japan got fed up with the Nippon Model Rocketry Club having more advanced guidance control than JAXA.
Finally a video on Japan’s current day launch vehicles! I also like tuning into their launch broadcasts, the way information is presented is very good and weirdly quite soothing. The Japanese language does that to me 😂. The highlight for me is the final countdown with the automated AI Japanese voice and of course “main engine start-o!”. Love it.
I think the company who made the strap-on boosters for N-1 was still being called Prince Motor at the time. They already had good experience with solid fuel motors at the time.
I lived in Southern Japan for three years and tried so hard to get down to Tanegashima to watch an H2A launch, to no avail. Maybe I can try for the H3 now.
So happy to see you using Juno New Origins
Certainly better UI.
Kiros was covered for a glimpse only ..
... but - as usual - great compilation of launch vehicle related stuff ! Thank you, Scott !!!
Well, kairos is a private VC trying to do it for first time. Think about Space X but with 1 percent of budget. Even then space x failed many times.
@@sailingadventurerspace x with 1 percent of the budget is Rocket Lab pretty much, and they’re honestly a close second in the private realm imo
Glad you sighted Ralph Nader in this vid. Check out his interview with Tim Judson (Ralph Nader Radio Hour Episode 523). The basic objections about waste, danger of accidents, ect...misses the real point of his core problem with nukes...it's big corporate monopoly.
There were other nation who wanted licence the Thor-Delta or buy
in early 1960 West Germany look in option to build Thor-Delta and launch them, that proposal went no were
after failure Europa II rocket ESRO proposed in 1970s to buy Delta rocket to launch there Satellites from Guiana Space Centre
until Europa III was ready, the french outright refused this, after that ESRO became ESA and Europa III cancel by Ariane 1
SCott,
Thanks for this update on the Japanese rockets.
I see no ksp but Juno: New Origains
new origami?
I prefer Juno to Kerbal (Oooo, controversial😮)
Junko: New Origamis
@@davisdf3064for a solo dev its very good sim.
Thank you! Very interesting 😀
Delta lives on!!!!!!!
Thanks scott!
does say something about japan's industry in the 70s that they could just pick up a US rocket design and pretty much build it without any major redesigns. idk if britain could have done something similar at the time
Good to see JNO there! I'm watching this while vizzy flies some contraption of mine to the south pole.
Well the Japaneese rocket development just seems like MOAR BOOOSTERS to me.
h3 has very impressive capabilities for 50 mil rocket! specially compared to 350 mil $ Delta IV Heavy
Can't hear "H2" without thinking of the insane Kawasaki supercharged motorcycle. A well deserved name for sure
Kawasaki Heavy Industries makes the payload fairings (noses) for all of the H boosters, including the H-II.
@@marcmcreynolds2827 seriously!? That's awesome
Scott nice recap.
One thing that caught my ere was in the engine redesign he stated they revise the plumbing and got rid of a lot of welded joints.
Did they replace them with flanged connections??? Hydroformed spools????
Component elimination????
What path did they choose???
Great video and cool history of a space program that's really hitting its stride.
Next the small rockets, especially the definitely-not-ICBM Epsilon?
Hi Scott, please make a video on ISRO's space shuttle, they just tested it successfully today.
I think I’m turning Japanese
🎵 I really think so think so… 🎶
Thanks Scott!
Thank you for sharing.🙂🙂
how about adding a timeline to these? b great to have a post to click on to review and index into. please?
Very interesting 🤔
Great video, Scott...👍
Thanks Scott.
Scott - What is the purpose of those solid rocket boosters (the little ones at the bottom) pointing the thrust outward? I understand that they're always symmetric so as not to cause a lateral force but it seems like at least a little bit of thrust is lost because it's not entirely vertical?
The general idea is to point a strap-on booster's thrust through the overall vehicle's center of gravity. That way thrust variations don't cause upsetting forces which the guidance system has to deal with (especially important for unguided rockets, which have no guidance!).
BTW at least one large space booster which has flown with a single strap-on: Atlas V.
AhHA. Excellent question, excellent answer. Thanks, you two.
I think it's also for extra pitch/yaw authority. You get more gimbaling range if it's pre-gimbaled, at cost of wasted thrust.
@@user-cr4sc1ht9t That can be the case for gimbaled motors, though the strap-on motors of the N-1 through H-1 had fixed nozzles. Movable nozzles were introduced on the large (1810 mm diameter) SRBs of the H-II, though that booster still needed small side jets at the base of the core for roll control following SRB jettison.
A faster burning motor produces more thrust while at the same time shifting the center of mass away from itself as it loses mass more quickly. If the axis of the nozzle were parallel with the rocket you would have an increasing thrust combined with an increasing moment arm as the CoM moves away from the motor axis, creating an increasing torque on the rocket which can be destabilizing. By angling the nozzles towards a point behind the CoM, the shift will be towards the axis of the motor producing more thrust, reducing the moment arm and lowering the torque. There are cosine losses but the angles are usually small (eg. 1 - cos 12° = 0.02) and the mass of extra propellant in the first stage isn't usually critical
Nice
No mention about that 90 degree turn after SRB separation at the end?
Scott, do you think JAXA will develop its own Falcon9-style reusable rocket?
Always enjoy your commentary, you should be on more often. This Chanel has come a long way from the rocket analyst days
Thanks for all the info, Scott! 😊
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Was that a sound barrier breaking at around 1330km/h in the time frame 13:38?
As long as Nissan does not make their space hardware like their CVT transmissions then there shouldn’t be any problems.
"The stage coasted quietly in orbit for about ten months, but eventually started emitting an annoying chainsaw kind of sound, especially under hard acceleration."
LOL keeping Thor alive, when its nothing like the original anymore
Same with Corvettes, Mustangs, and Lynyrd Skynrd.
It is the old Ship of Theseus paradox, (or if you from the UK, Trigger's Broom paradox lol).
I've enjoyed the video, learned a bit about Japan's space ambitions history, but the engine type acronyms and tech terminology went over my head (I get it, it's not a rocket science lecture).
IIRC, USA did not want Japan to develop indigenous (solid fuel) ballistic missile technology, and that was the reason why the USA licensed, with some safeguards, the liquid fuel launch vehicle to Japan. For similar reasons, South Korea was discouraged by the USA to develop their missile program.
That was the previous video: Japan's solid-fuel space boosters. By 1980 they were fully-guided and would have made passable ballistic missiles. But alas, peacenik Japan used them to fly probes to Halley's Comet, orbit space telescopes, etc.
initial rockets developed by Japan were unguided to avoid the missile concerns. The launch tower was actually tilted.
How about a video revealing how shipping and aircraft and private sailors (and oil platforms ) are warned about re-entry debris. I was surprised to see Starship FT3 ground track crossed South Africa before ending in the Indian Ocean off the coast of my country Australia. Does anyone know where any surviving debris of Starship landed? I would think high altitude passenger jets would be vulnerable. Do they really alter their regular routes when their is a known re-entry occuring or do they just assume the risk of collision is too low to need any concern. What about unscheduled re-entries.
The exclusion zones are usually long rectangles. They would know, and you could probably piece them together out of the NOTAMs or other navigational noticed that they issued.
Himawari, or Sunflower; how poetic.
And Sweden's part of NATO now! Huge for the IKEA/Nintendo partnership! Salud! 🥂
Any sentence with both "NATO" and "Nintendo" in it is a rare one, let me tell you.
Tom Nook will now sell you flat pack furniture.
Wtf
You know, the way IKEA and Nintendo both have non-overlapping insights into American consumer behavior, so they can profitably share information. This information will grow more valuable with NATO accession, because higher likelihood of [redacted] defense secrets.
Scott, you the MAN!!!!
Thor-buddy!
-- Jack O'niell
sugoi !
Do you need a special computer to use this simulator or can I put it on my laptop?
No. The simulator is called Juno: New Origins
I guess you could say that Thor is able.
The deal with US-Thor seemed also not had being much of a choice but with some incentives from US, avoiding another independant competitor after France/Europe success
I wonder if they keep on LH2 motors onward. It seems trickier than other liquid propellants and I wonder if there's a good economic reason to keep Hydrolox heritage.
We do (or used to) have almost ready to use LNG engine called LE-8 back in 2009, but the parent project (GX Rocket) got discontinued and so did the engine :( The research itself is still going on though, and the knowledge was recently used to help Interstellar Technologies (IST) develop their COSMOS engine for Zero! And with the rise of popularity of methalox nowadays, maybe the next gen vehicle will use methalox :)
@@yuuwa_rblx are there plans for JAXA to develop a reusable rocket, since H-3 has been obsolete for almost a decade?
@@bryanillenbergnot really, SpaceX fans keeps saying that but launch cadence of most rockets don't justify that
@@user-cr4sc1ht9t incorrect:
reusability will save money if launch cadence exceeds 3. And if cadence isn't that high, its probably because no-one but governments want to pay that much.
@@bryanillenberg So not incorrect. The cadence is THAT low. Same for Ariane and lots of other rockets.
How can I DM you Scott? If it’s possible I would love to pay you for a flight around the southern San Francisco Bay area. I’ll be in California near you from June 9th until June 15th. It’s the last time I’ll be coming back to the area of my childhood back in the 60’s thru the mid 80’s.
Sorry, you can’t pay me for flying, those are the rules. Suggest looking at seaplane tours for scenic flights.
@scottmanley get working on that commercial cert! Then you can start Scott's space tours (disclaimer does not fly to space)
@@scottmanleyWhat about if I make a huge donation to your home page or If you’re more comfortable by using a super chat when your live? 🙏🙏🙏 Please!! 😁😎
@@thomasfholland The man said no, stated a good reason and suggested an alternative. In return you're trying to lower his ethical standards. Not cool. Leave him alone.
@@thomasfholland It's not Scott's call. The FAA is *very* strict about not being able to accept pay for flying someone without a commercial pilot's license, and Scott doesn't have one. If he accepted you reimbursing him in any way for taking you on a flight, he could lose his license permanently.
❤
Fly safe bros
What happened to the H2O? TFS, GB :)
I have a question I'd like insight into.
In maritime and space settings, we have lots of potential for vehicles to dock, unock, merge, etc. Who retains sovereignty over what vehicle in these situations? For example, is the ISS (with its several segments and various docked vehicles) a single spacecraft? Who has direct control and sovereignty over the craft?
In a more sci-fi context, if I dock my ship to your ship, lock to lock, are they a single entity? What are the precedents for that kind of docking versus something like a shuttle or pinnace landing inside another ship?
What is the present state of law regarding maritime versions of the same scenarios? I don't know where to begin to research stuff like this.
👍👍
Kewl
No big in Japan comment yet? First I guess
@scottmanley is the channel currently sponsoring any kind of contests?
This is a very legitimate question!
Note the British Commonwealth developed the Black Brant sounding rocket similarly because the US restricted its offerings for domestic political reasons which eventually led to the current partner-hostile ITARs.
Can I ask a question that will undoubtedly make me seem incredibly dumb? Once the engine is going, it's going on full (or potentially throttling down as it approaches Max Q I suppose.) Whilst it obviously takes a while to get up to it's maximum speed, once it's up to that maximum speed, why doesn't the spedometer show that it's speed is constant? It doesn't do that. I was looking at the kmph data on one of those flight videos, and it showed the rocket getting faster and faster as it ascended. Not "maxing out" at some maximum speed, or slowing down (as they might've wanted to slow it a bit as it neared Max Q, as I suggested earlier.) Sorry for being so dumb. Can someone give me the Rockets for Dummies answer, so I can understand it?
The whole point is that it keeps accelerating up to orbital velocity. As it gets higher, the atmosphere thins.
@@paulsengupta971 keeps accelerating? Isn't, when the rocket is first turned on, it turned on to it's maximum setting? Are you saying they start it at 75% maximum, then keep pressing the accelerator? Surely not. Or are you saying the engine is on full the whole time, it just goes faster and faster due to the thinning of the atmosphere? Just the rate the speedo is climbing seems really fast for that to be the cause...
@@mrnnhnzAny thrust, power, will accelerate a body if the force of the thrust exceeds the force opposing it. You don't need to keep increasing the thrust, it can be constant, or, as you say, it can be reduced for various phases of flight, and as long as it exceeds the weight and the drag, the rocket will keep accelerating until the engine is shut off.
One question, this rockets still will be relevant after starship? I mean, in 2 to 5 years, if (IF) spacex reaches the goal of complete reusability, launching above 100 tons in orbit with minimal cost, there's any point to keep doing small rockets? Except of course, for self sufficiency, and military purpoises.
In a similar trend, there's any other company trying to be competitive? What ULA or Ariane are doing?
Any single launch is quite limited in terms of the sort of orbital parameters it can provide to a payload(s). Single-use boosters might become more of a niche business for less-traveled orbits?
Countries will always have an interest in their own domestic launch vehicles.
@@marcmcreynolds2827 If Starship hits all of its goals for turnaround time and cost, the cost to fly a Starship with a single payload could be economical in cost/kg terms down to a ton or two. But that won't happen for several years after Starship flies its first commercial payload.
There is no need for all rockets to be reusable. Some rockets like those domestic launch vehicles can afford to spend stages, because their job is to launch governmental or much more specific scientific payloads.
Starship is a GREAT low orbit cargo rocket... but until any other form of Starship development is done, that is what it will only do (not counting Lunar Starship).
Can Starship launch an Interplanetary payload? Yeah, kinda, but you would almost certainly lose the second stage, or even the first stage if you were to make it worth it.
There's different jobs for different rockets.
*If* Starship meets its design goals, it will indeed make all other rockets obsolete.
But thar was true of the Space Shuttle as well, and we all know how thar turned out. If it turns out to take 3 months to refurbish a Starship (- what it took to refurbish a Space Shuttle) then there will still be a market for other launchers.
Yet one more occasion when Scott Manley teaches me something I didn’t know I needed to know!
Thanks Scott, fly safe!
Scott's Japanese pronunciation is pretty good!
@@nyohaku you're not Japanese and you're wrong. It's にっさん, short I with an polsive stop (?) and way he says it at 7:00 is very close to native.
1:40 Is that the new KSP UI? Me like.
It is Juno: New Origins, another game
Odd. Large Japanese rockets are usually blurred.
They're seldomly large though
Good-quality non-blurred images are at the JAXA Digital Archives.
Its all about the angle. @@osiris1102
@@marcmcreynolds2827 🥲😶🌫
Nissan or Nissin?
What is that sim btw?
Scott, is your pronunciation of Nissan correct? I've always said it as"knee-sawn"?
The latter is correct, but Scott's pronunciation is pretty common world-wide...
Just punch Nissan into Google Translate and have it speak the word (in Japanese, of course). Scott's seemed pretty accurate.
Knee-sawn sounds like a US pronunciation. In Australia, we mispronounce it 'Nis-en', so we are no better
Interesting at 13:40 it reaches 10.0km at exactly one minute :)
😮nasa copied H-ll and made SLS
This is just perfectly fitting, as I am currently developing an up-to-date rocket quartett/happy family card game including all these Japanese heavy lifters, from N-1 to H3. :)
哈哈哈哈烟花如此美丽
Does make me wonder if they have ever had a Rocket on the pad when a high level earthquake hit 🤔
Things around the Pacific Rim (buildings, bridges) tend to get designed with earthquakes in mind. I looked at that briefly in regard to stress on landing gear of parked airliners, before realizing that the tires would simply slide long before a design load was reached.
Probably not a problem for an unfueled vehicle relative to its design loads (4+ gees, with weight increased ~9X by fuel), but perhaps for a fully-fueled vehicle secured to the pad they just keep their fingers crossed over the relatively brief period of exposure?
私たちの国の液体燃料ロケットについて分かりやすく解説してくれてありがとう！👍
nissan💀
Is Thor a good name for a Norwegian who is born in the Spring? 😉
The African Space Program deserves its own video.
The H3 rocket with 2 side boosters launching from Tanegashima “looks just like” Dr Evil’s funny rocket launching from the secret island in Austin Powers… the part where it caused all that confusion and consternation when it appeared on radar !
Scott missed a trick not splicing in that bit of video ! 😅
Fuji Heavy Industries is Subaru
OHSUMI sounds like a Donald Trump trademark.
Underrated comment 🤣💩
Pencil rockets? So what are the smallest rockets that could get to orbit?
SS-520, a two-stage sounding rocket with a third stage added to get a very small payload to orbital speed. Note that their ISAS space agency's first orbital booster in the 1960s similarly started out as a somewhat larger three-stage sounding rocket with a fourth stage added.
Whoa. The archival footage at 1:45 is so clear and colorful for a 1960's launch!
(Yes, I know it's KSP)
It is not! It is Juno: New Origins, another space game
BIG TWO MINDED ROCKET
Im very sry. Just had to.
8 launches in a few years meanwhile falcon 9 launches 8 times in a month. Give it a year 8 times in a week. It’s mind blowing
The way you mispronounce Nissan is amusingly British
Japan has decent capabilities
Their second asteroid sample return mission (Hayabusa 2) eclipsed the later NASA effort IMO. Not to make it out as a competition -- just saying that Japan has had moments of preeminence.
🎼"You only live twice." 🎵🎶
Does Scott know what ”turning japanese” actually means?
Yes.
Just thinking about it gives me the vapours.
They should emulate the Godzilla movies and to name the next rocket N Minus One.
それらわとても大大きいです
H2S is an extremely unfortunate name for a rocket. Nothing says fun like high explosives named after high corrosives.
I hope you know the true meaning of the song "turning Japanese" haha
I think he doesn’t. The subject makes it funnier.
Ok. He claims he knows.
Everyone be playing kerbal these days
The game in the video is Juno: New Origins, another space game
Ah, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the rocket company! Oh by the way, I heard the government is looking for a few more tanks and *maybe* a few destroyers and submarines, I wonder who'd sell them those? ...Lastly, you don't happen to know where I could get an AC unit perchance, do you?
Hurray for Japan, hurray for hydrogen!
I worry that this switch to methane will be terrible for global warming as the launch market grows exponentially.
Sure methane **can** be made using CO2 and H20, but will anyone on earth actually bother to do that in a competitive launch market when natural gas is so cheap?
Same for H, made out of natural gas😢
How much of the world's supply of hydrogen is made from methane?
According to Wikipedia, about 49% per smr (Steam Methan Reduktion), 29% oil reforming, 17% coal reforming, 4% per water electrolyse.
In the other hand there is still plenty room for improvement (Environmentally speaking 😊)
You are overlooking that most gas is used for industry - by a HUGE margin. The space usage, even ramped up, will be tiny. But…injecting aerosols into the upper atmosphere, whether from water or partially burned fuels IS an issue. Hydrogen doesn’t solve that. It’s a thing currently being modelled as more is learned
Mentors pilot petter and others have done the math: Rocket exhaust gases play virtually no role in relation to the many daily aircraft take-offs. And airplanes are also not a decisive factor in CO2 emissions. See diesel engines in ships, the military and many new coal-fired power plants in Asia (although modern plants are already much better). In any case, the focus on methane in rockets is wrong because it is disproportionate.