TOKYO: A huge fire erupted Tuesday at a Japanese rocket testing station, sending flames and smoke soaring into the sky, in the latest mishap for the country’s ambitious space program.
There were no reports of any injuries in the incident, in a remote area of Kagoshima in southern Japan, where a solid-fuel Epsilon S rocket was being tested.
Footage on national broadcaster NHK showed towering balls of fire and white fumes rising from the Tanegashima Space Center.
Journalists stationed around 900 meters (yards) away reported a large explosion shortly after after the combustion test began at 8:30 am (2330 GMT).
“There was an abnormality during today’s combustion test. We are trying to assess what happened,” the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) told AFP in a statement.
“No injuries have been reported at this point. The cause is also under investigation.”
The Asahi Shimbun daily reported that the agency’s plan to launch the Epsilon S — the successor to the Epsilon — by March was now nearly impossible.
In July 2023 one engine of an Epsilon S exploded during a test around 50 seconds after ignition.
In that incident a piece of metal from the ignition melted and damaged the thermal insulator covering the engine, allowing fuel to catch fire, Kyodo News reported.

SETBACK
That was one in a string of setbacks for Japan’s space program, including launch attempts for its next-generation H3 launch system.
JAXA managed a successful blast-off in February this year for the H3, which has been mooted as a rival to SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
But that followed a failed attempt in February 2023 when the ignition process failed. The following month a destruct command was issued shortly after blast-off.
“Including the Epsilon S, the development of flagship rockets is extremely important for the independence of Japan’s space development program,” top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters at a regular briefing on Tuesday.
In January, Japan successfully landed an unmanned probe on the Moon — albeit at a crooked angle — making it just the fifth country to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.
But in March a rocket made by a private Japanese company exploded seconds after launch.
Tokyo-based Space One’s 18-meter (60-foot) Kairos rocket blasted off in the coastal Wakayama region of western Japan, carrying a small government test satellite.
Around five seconds later, the solid-fuel rocket erupted in fire, sending white smoke billowing around the remote mountainous area as orange flames raged on the ground, live footage showed.
Burning debris fell onto the surrounding slopes as sprinklers began spraying water, in dramatic scenes watched by hundreds of spectators gathered at public viewing areas including a nearby waterfront.
Space One said at the time that it had taken the decision to “abort the flight” and details were being investigated.

WASHINGTON: A judge on Monday granted a request by prosecutors to dismiss the election subversion case against Donald Trump because of a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Judge Tanya Chutkan agreed to the request by Special Counsel Jack Smith to dismiss the case against the president-elect “without prejudice,” meaning it could potentially be revived after Trump leaves the White House four years from now.
“Dismissal without prejudice is appropriate here,” Chutkan said, adding in the ruling that “the immunity afforded to a sitting President is temporary, expiring when they leave office.”
Trump, 78, was accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden and removing large quantities of top secret documents after leaving the White House, but the cases never came to trial.
Smith also moved on Monday to drop his appeal of the dismissal of the documents case filed against the former president in Florida. That case was tossed out earlier this year by a Trump-appointed judge on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed.
The special counsel paused the election interference case and the documents case this month after Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 presidential election.
Smith cited the long-standing Justice Department policy of not indicting or prosecuting a sitting president in his motions to have the cases dismissed.
“The Government’s position on the merits of the defendant’s prosecution has not changed,” Smith said in the filing with Chutkan. “But the circumstances have.”
“It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting President,” Smith said.
“As a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated.”
In a separate filing, Smith said he was withdrawing his appeal of the dismissal of the classified documents case against Trump but pursuing the case against his two co-defendants, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira.

Trump, in a post on Truth Social, said the cases were “empty and lawless, and should never have been brought.”
“Over $100 Million Dollars of Taxpayer Dollars has been wasted in the Democrat Party’s fight against their Political Opponent, ME,” he said. “Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before.”
Trump was accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding — the session of Congress called to certify Biden’s win, which was violently attacked on January 6, 2021 by a mob of the then-president’s supporters.
Trump was also accused of seeking to disenfranchise US voters with his false claims that he won the 2020 election.
The former and incoming president also faces two state cases — in New York and Georgia.
He was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election to stop her from revealing an alleged 2006 sexual encounter.
However, Judge Juan Merchan has postponed sentencing while he considers a request from Trump’s lawyers that the conviction be thrown out in light of the Supreme Court ruling in July that an ex-president has broad immunity from prosecution.
In Georgia, Trump faces racketeering charges over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results in the southern state, but that case will likely be frozen while he is in office.