TOKYO, DEC 31     :     Japan’s space agency has decided to launch the H3 rocket, developed as a successor to the current mainstay launch vehicle, in mid-February, about a year after the first attempt failed.

The second H3 rocket is scheduled to take off between 9:22 a.m. and 1:06 p.m. on Feb. 15 from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.

The H3 rocket is a two-stage liquid-propellant rocket as successor to the H2A rocket, the first revamp of the country’s main launch vehicle in about 20 years.

In the inaugural launch in March this year, the first H3 rocket lifted off but was instructed to self-destruct minutes later after its second-stage engine failed to ignite due to a short circuit. The Advanced Land Observing Satellite-3 aboard the rocket was lost.

The second H3 rocket was initially planned to carry the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-4, meant to observe the Earth’s surface, but it will carry two microsatellites instead after the failed first attempt, according to JAXA.(UNI)