Japan's Epsilon 5 rocket and its nine satellites, including Vietnam's NanoDragon (Photo: JAXA/VNA) Tokyo (VNA) – The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has cancelled the launch of its Epsilon 5 rocket, expected to carry Vietnam’s NanoDragon satellite and eight others into the outer space, on October 1, possibly due to technical problems.
JAXA said it would announce the cause of the cancellation and a new launch schedule later.
Watching the launch online, Assoc. Prof., Dr. Pham Anh Tuan, General Director of the Vietnam National Space Centre (VNSC) under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, said about a minute before launching the rocket, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) stopped the process to check the machinery system.
After checking, it decided to suspend the launch on October 1, he said.
The NanoDragon, a nano-layer cubesat satellite which weighs 3.8 kilograms, was developed by the VNSC.
Earlier, the satellite was delivered to Japan on August 11 and tested at the Uchinoura Space Centre in Kagoshima prefecture from August 16-17 before being officially transferred to the JAXA for launching under the second "Innovative satellite technology demonstration" programme.
The Epsilon 5 was expected to launch NanoDragon along with eight other made-in-Japan satellites from Uchinoura Space Centre in Kagoshima./.
VNA
