Earlier we took a look at the development of the improved H-2A/B rocket that is going to “lower costs” for commercial satellites to help the H-2A compete in the global market.
Well that may be true, but the key point about the improvements is that they follow Japan’s traditional approach to technology investment- kaizen. By continually learning and improving, the spin-on for Japan’s ability to put be able to put all sorts of payloads in all sorts of places is the necessary deeper function of the dual-use technonationalist development paradigm that these days you don’t even have to scratch the surface of to expose.
This article looks at the deeper story behind the improved H-2A. Like the Epsilon, development has been pushed out. Unlike the Epsilon, the future potential evolution of the H-series to human rating is quite clear.
The first thing to point out is that the upgrades I wrote about in Space News are a deal less ambitious than those originally planned last September. I the original plans for these through the spring, but they were embargoed. Now they’re to have as a reference.
LE-X and H-X
Anyway, lets step back and take a look at how Japan’s rocket program rose and fell and rose again, the inflection points being the February 21, 1998 (crack in LE-5A cooling chamber, dodgy brazing,) and November 15, 1999 (fatigue failure LE-7A inducer) back-to-back failures of the H-2 and then the November 29, 2003 failure (nozzle erosion, SRB-A) of the H-2A carrying two IGS spy satellites.
It was the failure of the H-2A’s Nissan/Thiokol technology SRB-A that particularly incensed then-SAC Commissioner Iguchi, who slammed his desk in frustration: “We forgot to check the SRB-A!” he exclaimed, and rankled Takeo Kawamura (then MEXT-minister and in-name-only responsible for the cursed booster’s non-separation from the core stage) enough to begin the process of reforming Japan’s space governance- reforms that are just now being resolved by Yamakawa sensei.
We shall overcome indeed.
But since then the H-2A/B have flown with a perfect record, with the H-2B representing a literally huge boost to Japan’s LV integration skills as well as its launch capacity all for a couple of hundred million bucks. Yes, THAT GOOD!
Apart from improvements in nozzles, cavitation, valves and vibration, JAXA and MHI’s continuous kaizen have led to a number of other improvements of other weaknesses, including separating redundancy lines to make them even more robust, and protecting the wire harness, lets never remember that these rockets work as designed and developed at a cost one order lower than their U.S. rivals.
Another one of those failures by Japan’s doomed and disaster-prone space program, right?
Now lets go to the H-X, which is scheduled for development in 2020; the key weapon for this is the LE-X engine, which will use a high-thrust expander bleed cycle engine, making it inherently more safe and robust.
Thrust will be 1450kN, Specific Impulse (vacuum) 432 seconds and the rotational speeds of the FTP and OTP will be 40,800 rpm and 16,100 rpm respectively. The engine will feature a simplified manifold for the injector, a single-sage open impeller with a two-stage inducer for the fuel turbo pump, a spin-form single sheet metallic nozzle and the oxygen turbo pump will feature a single-stage impeller and a two-stage turbine. Component testing is due to start next year with prototype engine test firing in 2015 and qualification tests beginning in 2017. If everything goes according to plan -a big if of course- then a test flight might be feasible as early as 2018, according to internal JAXA documents.
Will Japan pull it off and be launching a manned H-X in 2020. I don’t think so- there isn’t the will nor the money. Can Japan do it?
You bet!
