TOKYO -- Japan's successful liftoff of a more price-competitive rocket Friday carries the country into a new stage of private-sector space development, an industry that has remained mostly grounded due to prohibitive costs.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, launched the solid-fuel Epsilon-4 from the Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture. The vehicle carried seven miniature satellites, which all released from the rocket within 70 minutes after the morning liftoff.
