TOKYO -- Japan launched its main H3 launch vehicle on Monday, successfully sending an earth observation satellite into orbit, a major step toward its goal of making the H3 a commercial launch vehicle and competing in the global launch market.
Japan's space agency, known as JAXA, launched the two-stage hydrogen rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center, about 1,000 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, past noon. The rocket carried a 3-ton radar satellite, the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-4 or ALOS-4, and put it into sun-synchronous orbit.
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