Development of launch vehicles for application purposes

Abstract

The N-I, N-II, H-I launch vehicles and TT-500A rocket will be described in this paper out of the various launch vehicles and rockets developed and being developed by the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA). The N-I is at present the main satellite launcher of Japan. The N-II is an improved version of N-I, and the H-I is a future launch vehicle with a cryogenic second stage. The TT-500A is a small two stage rocket for material processing experiments. Since the first stage of NASAs Thor-Delta vehicle is used as the first stage of N-I and N-II, most of the development efforts have been expended on the second stages. The N-I, N-II and H-I second stages are presented to show the development activities at NASDA.