posted 02-10-2024 10:24 AM               

Time in Japan is +9 hours of GMT, so a time of 11 hours as indicated on the cover would equate to 2am GMT [12Sep69].

The text (in purple RSC) reads: "Japan resumes rocket tests by successfully launching, after a lapse of 17 months, the 2 stage 109kg rocket ST160F1 at 11 hours today."

I cannot find a rocket launch from Uchinoura on that date. From Astronautix I can find the following launches:

• Uchinoura 3Sep69 [no GMT time given] Lambda4T one and only test mission reached 400km altitude.

• Uchinoura 22Sep69 (2:10 GMT] Lambda4S Ohsumi-4 failed stage 4

• NB Ohsumi-3 launched Uchinoura 13Apr67 which is 29 months previously, or 17 months previously if one year was missed inadvertently when calculating dates

• Alternatively, at Tanegashima (which is an entirely different site to Kagoshima/Uchinoura) on 10Sep69 a two-stage solid fuel rocket LS-C test mission reached 100km altitude. It's previous launch was "7" months earlier.

posted 02-26-2024 09:17 AM               

All my attempts to nail down a corresponding launch failed because of my mistake in not recognising Showa 43 as AD 1968. Such a basic mistake.

12th September 1968 is 17 months after the failed Ohsumi-3 launch from Uchinoura/Kagoshima.

No more rocket launches of any kind took place at Uchinoura after the Ohsumi-3 failure whilst ISAS regathered their momentum after Hideo Itokawa (the founder of ISAS) was forced out by a relentless media campaign in 1967.

Then Japan, or more precisely ISAS, resumed launches from Kagoshima with three 'test' missions, using the S-160 (100kg weight) Japanese ISAS singe stage sounding rocket, on 10th September (twice) and 12th September 1968.

Apart from it being a single stage (not two stage) sounding rocket, and not knowing if F1 was the first or third launch, the facts now correspond.

It is a launch cover for a Japanese sounding rocket S-160* on 12th September 1968 from Uchinoura by ISAS, after a gap of 17 months when no launches took place.