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TOKYO (AP) -- A Japanese rocket carrying an Australian satellite lifted off from a remote island Saturday, marking the first time the domestically developed H-2A has been launched with an international payload.
The black and orange rocket, which also carried a satellite designed to monitor the movement of whales, lifted off into blue skies from the Tanegashima Space Center on a small, rocky island off the coast of southern Japan.
Australia is the first country to entrust Japan with launching a satellite into space, and officials hope it will give a major boost to Japan's efforts to join the commercial satellite launching business.
Japan wasn't making any money this time, however.
It offered last year to put Australia's satellite -- the research pod FedSat -- into space as a gift for the centennial anniversary of Australia's commonwealth government.
The 58-kilogram (120-pound) FedSat has high-tech communication, space science, navigation and computing equipment and was intended to help bring broadband Internet services to remote parts of Australia. Data from its three-year mission was to be shared between the two nations.
The three Japanese satellites aboard included the Whale Ecology Observation Satellite, designed by a university to monitor the movements and behavior of whales over the next 1-2 years, and another probe to observe global warming and environmental change.
The Japanese probe was successfully placed into orbit 16 minutes after lift-off with the remaining three satellites soon to follow, said a space center official, who declined to be named.
About 200 space program officials and curious onlookers came to observe the rocket as it lifted off in a ball of steam and orange jet flames, public TV broadcaster NHK said.
The 53-meter (170-foot) tall, two-stage H-2A is the centerpiece of Japan's space program and the focus of its commercial satellite-launching hopes.
Saturday's launch was the fourth for the H-2A, following launches in August 2001 and February and September of this year. Next year, it is scheduled to launch Japan's first spy satellites into orbit.
Although the others were successful, the National Space Development Agency's second H-2A mission in February was marred by the loss of a 600 million yen (US$4.88 million) research probe.
The H2-A was developed at a cost of 8.5 billion yen (US$69 million) as a cheaper replacement for the more sophisticated _ and more failure-prone _ H-2 rocket. The H-2 line had five successful launches in a row before a sixth misfired and the seventh ended in a fireball.
Japan remains far behind the United States and Europe's Arianespace.
America's Delta IV made its inaugural launch Nov. 20, while another competitor, Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Atlas V, made a successful debut in August.
But the European space program suffered a major disappointment on Wednesday, when an Ariane-5 and its payload of two huge satellites plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in pieces.
The botched launch was the second for the Ariane-5, which has yet to make a successful flight.
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