ton-force for a 98-second burn prior to thrust tailoff. Burnout of the 15-meter long boosters was sensed by their declining chamber pressure, triggering the Flight Control System to initiate the separation 108 seconds into the flight at an altitude of 54 Kilometers.
With the two boosters cleanly separating, H-IIA headed on toward orbit powered by the LE-7A engine alone, guzzling down 260 Kilograms of cryogenics per second to output a thrust of 109 metric ton force when flying through the thin upper atmosphere.
By X+4 minutes and 10 seconds, H-IIA had escaped the dense atmosphere and reached 150 Kilometers in altitude, allowing the fairing halves to be split open and separated to shed no-longer-needed weight and reveal the QZS-2 satellite for the rest of its ride into orbit. The first stage was to shut down its LE-7A engine six minutes and 38 seconds into the flight, having reached a speed of 5.2 Kilometers per second.
Six seconds after MECO, the 37-meter first stage dropped away from upper stage to hand powered flight off to the LE-5B engine set for a pair of burns during Thursday’s primary mission.
Firing up its 14,000 Kilogram-force LE-5B engine, the second stage was to continue on a south-easterly trek for a burn of five minutes and 48 seconds to push the stack into a Low Earth Parking orbit around 270 Kilometers in altitude. After shutdown on the second stage, H-IIA entered a coast phase of exactly 12 minutes to reach the proper position for the second burn that was designed to set the high point of the orbit.
Instead of a mission to Geostationary Transfer Orbit that aims to minimize inclination, H-IIA was actively working to increase orbital inclination on Thursday, targeting a highly elliptical orbit of 250 by 36,140 Kilometers, inclined 31.9 degrees.
— なりたまさひろ (@naritamasahiro) June 1, 2017
The second stage re-started its engine 24 and a half minutes into the flight on a planned burn of three minutes, expected to raise the vehicle’s speed by 2.5 Kilometers per second to accomplish the high-energy injection. Shutdown was marked 27 and a half minutes after launch when the upper stage’s navigation platform sensed it had achieved the proper orbit.
QZS-2 was sent off with a spring-loaded separation 28.5 minutes after liftoff, embarking on a 15-year mission delivering accurate navigation to users in Japan’s canyon-like city streets and aviators across the Asia-Pacific Region.
QZS-2 will be tasked with a series of burns over the course of the coming days and weeks to maneuver from its transfer orbit into the specialized Geosynchronous Orbit of the QZS constellation that describes a Figure 8 with its ground track and dwells over the Japanese Islands, ensuring one of the three constellation satellites is at an elevation of 60 degrees or higher, as seen from Japan.
The successful launch of QZS-2 atop its H-IIA rocket marked the first of three planned orbital launches on Thursday, June 1, 2017. Next up will be a SpaceX Falcon 9 targeting an instantaneous launch window at 21:55 UTC to blast off with the Dragon SpX-11 resupply craft headed to the International Space Station. Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket stands ready for liftoff during a one-hour window opening at 23:45 UTC to lift the ViaSat-2 Internet and Eutelsat 172B multi-band satellites into Geostationary Transfer Orbit.
For Japan, Thursday’s launch marked the fourth orbital launch attempt of the year, three of which used the H-IIA. Japan has plenty more missions in store in 2017 including two more QZSS launches, the Global Change Observation Mission – Climate (GCOM-C) Earth science craft, a secretive Information Gathering Satellite, and the re-flight of the SS-520 Small Satellite Launch Vehicle.