Description
Video Credit: JAXALaunch Updates: http://spaceflight101.com/h-iia-qzs-2/A Japanese H-IIA rocket screamed away from the country’s Tanegashima Space Center on Thursday, dispatching an innovative satellite into orbit to join a constellation of spacecraft enhancing the availability and accuracy of Global Positioning System navigation services over the Japanese Islands and Asia-Pacific Region.The 53-meter tall H-IIA rocket took flight at precisely 0:17:46 UTC, lifting off the ground powered by its cryogenic main engine and a pair of Solid Rocket Boosters that did most of the work for the first minute and a half of the flight before dropping away. H-IIA relied on its cryogenic core stage for six and a half minutes before the second stage took over for a pair of burns – first into a Low Earth Parking Orbit ahead of a critical re-start to boost the 4,100-Kilogram satellite into an elliptical transfer orbit.