FAILURE: Space One KAIROS LV first launch - March 13, 2024 (02:01 UTC)

[Skyrocket]

Again no show!

[jcm]

What's not clear to me if these were hang-fires or just the commentators and onscreen clock not being informed about holds in the countdown. But looks like it's a scrub for the day based on the people leaving the area.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Looks like a scrub.

[Steven Pietrobon]

End of webcast.

[LH2NHI]

Although the official broadcast was disappointing, there was excellent aerial footage of the launch preparations and re-rollback operations by the TV station.

MBS News Live Coverage

Raising the MST satellite floor and evacuation from the MST launch pad

(The official broadcast is a travel promotion measure by local governments suffering from depopulation and does not seem to be aimed at space exploration fans.)

[LH2NHI]

KAIROS LV rollback operation
MST moving to the launch pad.
The TV station's aerial pilot did a very good job!

（It would be scary to think if this TV station had no aerial footage and only official broadcasts that were noisy and lacked information.）

[Galactic Penguin SST]

This is more or less the official scrub tweet from IHI Aerospace:

https://twitter.com/IHI_ad/status/1766287855972991484

[Steven Pietrobon]

Bing translation.

"The launch of the KAIROS rocket has been rescheduled. Details will be announced as soon as they are known. — IHI Corporation"

[Galactic Penguin SST]

https://twitter.com/asahi_tenmon/status/1766329317037085086

Confirmed that launch was delayed due to possible ship violation of the range (not confirmed apparently - was seen on radar).
Next attempt is NET March 13.

[Asteroza]

Reports suggest the range violation was a ship which could not be turned around in time to exit before the launch window closed, so they gave up.

Apparently all 2500 local resident and 2500 non-resident launch viewing tickets were given out, so a fair crowd showed up. The official broadcast unfortunately had the cheese factor of a typical rural local event production, replete with getting the kids to shout slogans of encouragement and rolling out yet another mascot character.

For good or ill, the fact that there was reduced PR factors in the broadcast meant no launch loop audio or control room video. Even the pseudo-countdown audio was weak TTS count audio.

[Asteroza]

Payload is indeed (as speculated earlier in the other thread) a prototype "quick response" satellite for the Japanese government Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center, who also operates the IGS series: https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/houdou/pdf/241026sate.pdf

Any guess who built the payload?  MELCO like the IGS sats?

According to a document summarizing the contract for the “short-term launch small satellite system,”
Satellite system is AES Corporation
http://www.aes.co.jp/
The ground system is Skyperfect JSAT.

https://orbitseals.blogspot.com/2020/08/1japan-csice-satellite-rocket.html

"Short-term launch small satellite system" is also mentioned in the Cabinet Office Space Policy Committee materials, and before the official announcement, Grid estimated on OSINT that it would be launched on KAIROS LV.

Interesting. AES's only previous satellite was the 50 kg SOCRATES launched for the Kashima lab.

There was a poor quality rumor that MHI was involved in the sat somehow, and was the reason that sat itself wasn't of Canon Electronics origin.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Official confirmation that next attempt will be on March 13: https://twitter.com/ihi_ad/status/1767103588067889631

[Galactic Penguin SST]

New webcast:

[Asteroza]

Official confirmation that next attempt will be on March 13: https://twitter.com/ihi_ad/status/1767103588067889631

Supposedly the launch window extends through the end of march if they don't launch on the 13th, so I guess that's regarding scheduling NOTAMS, etc. Official broadcast by the same local Wakayama TV station again it seems.

Though from a PR perspective, if they have that much leeway in the launch window, why not push it back to the weekend? They had such a good local turnout, seems a shame to not have that again.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Still on in just over 2 hours' time: https://twitter.com/nvslive/status/1767675348404289902

Alternative stream:

[Steven Pietrobon]

NVS view.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Vehicle and payload.

[Steven Pietrobon]

View locations.

[Steven Pietrobon]

A direct view of the launch site is not possible.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Size comparison and stage components.