Following a failed launch on Wednesday, Japan''s space agency said it sent a self-destruct order to its Epsilon rocket because of a problem that enabled the craft to not fly safely.
On its sixth space deployment, an unmanned rocket, expected to launch in three phases.
According to a JAXA official, the rocket cannot continue a safe flight because of the danger it would create if it falls on the ground.
"So we took precautions to avoid such a catastrophe, and we sent the signal (to destroy the rocket)," he said, adding that information on the cause of the problem was not immediately available.
NHK and other media outlets said Japan was the first country to launch failed rockets since 2003.
The launch from the Uchinoura Space Center in the southern Kagoshima region was interrupted, and speakers said there was a problem, without giving any details.
- Partial Solar Eclipse on October 25 in India: Here''''s Where It''''ll Be Visible
The Epsilon rocket, which is powerful, has been in use since 2013.
It is smaller than the country''s previous liquid-fuelled model, and it is a replacement to the "M-5" rocket, which was redesigned for the first time in 2006, due to its high cost.
According to a NASA article, one of the satellites being carried by the rocket, called RAISE-3, had planned to orbit the Earth for at least a year.
The US space agency has had to return the SLS rocket, the most powerful ever designed by NASA so far, to its storage hangar in order to prevent it from the approaching of Hurricane Ian last month.
According to NASA, the next possible launch windows - determined according to the position of the Earth and the Moon - will be from October 17 to 31, and from November 12 to 27, respectively.