The second launch of the H3 Launch Vehicle (H3TF2)

The second H3 Launch Vehicle (H3TF2 - Test Flight No.2) launched the Vehicle Evaluation Payload-4 (VEP-4), along with two small secondary payloads: CE-SAT-IE and TIRSAT, from the Tanegashima Space Center, on 17 February 2024, at 00:22 UTC (09:22 local time). The H3 Launch Vehicle is JAXA’s “new flagship rocket aiming at achieving high flexibility, high reliability, and high cost performance”. H3 is designed to offer several variants with “two types of fairings, two or three first-stage engines (LE-9), and zero, two or four solid rocket boosters (SRB-3) to deal with various payload sizes and orbits”. Credit: JAXA #H3 H3ロケット試験機2