<figure id="attachment_3107200" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3107200" style="width: 1600px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-3107200" src="https://media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/a9eaa13b-ap5405716987554394.webp" alt="" width="1600" height="1000" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-3107200" class="wp-caption-text">Private rocketmakers in Japan are racing to enter into the commercial launch market dominated by US rivals SpaceX and Rocket Lab. (AP pic)</figcaption></figure>
TOKYO: Taiwanese private rocket company TiSpace terminated the flight of one of its rockets shortly after lift-off in northern Japan today, failing to become the first foreign company to perform a successful launch on Japanese soil.
TiSpace, through its Japanese unit jtSPACE, tried to reach outer space 100km above the Earth&#8217;s surface on the inaugural flight of its 12m, hybrid-fuelled rocket VP01 in a launch from Japan&#8217;s Hokkaido Spaceport.
The rocket lifted off at 11.40am, but within a minute its trajectory turned wobbly and it went into freefall, footage from Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed.
&#8220;We are examining the situation of the flight,&#8221; a spokesman for Space Cotan, the Japanese company operating the Hokkaido Spaceport, said after the launch attempt.
The rocket did not carry a satellite, although Space Cotan has said its success would be a step toward building a satellite-launching vehicle.
TiSpace, led by a former Taiwan Space Agency official, has not had a successful spaceflight. It turned to Japan in search of a test site after failing to launch a rocket in Australia in 2022.
While local officials and businesses in Hokkaido welcomed the move as a milestone toward becoming an international space hub, some Japan space policy experts have worried about provoking China, which closely monitors Taiwan&#8217;s advances in missile-related technologies.
In Japan private rocketmakers are racing to gain entry to the commercial launch market dominated by Elon Musk&#8217;s SpaceX and US rivals including Rocket Lab. No privately developed Japanese rocket has achieved orbital satellite launch.
Interstellar Technologies, a Hokkaido-based startup now backed by Toyota, was in 2019 the first private rocket venture in Japan to reach space, although without a satellite payload.
Canon Electronics-backed Space One conducted two failed orbital launches last year. Carmaker Honda last month succeeded in a low-altitude test of its prototype reusable rocket in Hokkaido, pledging to achieve spaceflight by 2029.

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