Crash and burn. Watch Japanese entrepreneur's unmanned rocket launch end in a huge fireball

[TexasTowelie]

TOKYO — Talk about crash and burn. A rocket developed by a controversial Japanese entrepreneur burst into flames and crashed to earth in a fireball over the weekend.

The MOMO-2 rocket was developed by Interstellar Technologies, a startup that was partially crowd-funded and aims to lower the cost of space flight. Its founder is Takafumi Horie, a colorful Internet entrepreneur and convicted fraudster, who says he wants to start by putting small satellites into space and ultimately, like U.S. entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, send private citizens into space.

But his second major launch ended in spectacular failure on Saturday morning, according to Kyodo News. The 30-foot rocket was supposed to reach 60 miles into space: instead it barely managed to lift off before flames started to shoot from its base and it crashed back down to earth.

The crash, at a test site near the town of Taiki in Japan’s Hokkaido island, caused no injuries. It was the second failure for the startup after engineers lost contact with the first rocket 66 seconds after it launched last July. MOMO-1 fell into the sea after reaching a height of around 12 miles, the Nikkei Asian Review reported at the time.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/07/02/crash-and-burn-watch-japanese-entrepreneurs-unmanned-rocket-launch-end-in-a-huge-fireball/

[DetlefK]

1. You can see that there's a small sideways explosion right after start.

I guess, a fuel-line exploded from overpressure, and then the booster no longer had enough inside pressure to lift the rocket.