Honda successfully launched and landed its own reusable rocket
Honda Conducts Successful Launch and Landing Test of Experimental Reusable Rocket | Honda Global Corporate Website
It seems crazy that a company that's only really known for cars, motorbikes, tuning forks, heat pumps, brake pads, pens, tractors, fertilizer, display panels, outboard motors, pneumatic systems, oil tankers, furniture, locomotives, bricks, solar panels, ATVs, generators, hot air balloons, dinghies, hydrogen fuel cells, submarines, crop dusters, jet engines, cultivators, hedge trimmers, lawnmowers, precision optics and robots would suddenly pivot to rockets.
It's almost like they're an engineering company.
Crazy, right?
To be fair to Honda, they are doing what is expected of any companies in a capitalist system, actually innovate and diversify in order to remain competitive. Most other companies would rather stick to their traditional products and services, even if those products and services are written on the wall that they are becoming obsolete.
Incredible. What a great comment.
The impressive part is that they are also known for being reliable, there are the occasional issues, but overall very trustworthy products.
Like how the 2018-2021 Honda Civics shipped with non functioning AC because they used the wrong type of refrigerant? They’ve also trained dealerships to deny the warranty!
It’s been in the 90s all week - I risk heat stroke in my fucking car going to work!
Also a very capable downhill bike that was using a gearbox well before it got popular
It's actually interesting how similar rockets and jet engines are. You could think of a rocket as a jet (or sometimes two jet engines) where the afterburner is always on and the air intake is replaced by an O2 tank..
a rocket is a wingless airplane IMO
Edit: with oxygen tanks, as you said.
Unfortunately, the next competitor will be Amazon...
And then we'll see what happens next, getting a whole constellation up is no small feat, I can't see a third company getting a system working before 2050.
Also with starlink even one company's constellation is causing issues with astronomers and launches.
How bad will it be if there are 5-6 different companies with their own network floating around up there. And then other countries with their own network.
I know Blue Horizon or whatever it's called has had minor success with rockets. What's stopping Honda from out-competing them? Could it be a funding problem? (I know Blue Horizon has a lot of Amazon funding)
The satellite constellation is the natural consequence of cheaper rockets. It's a true paradigm shift, but the pioneer in this case has only the moat of being able to spend less money per launch. If someone else can deliver payloads to low earth orbit for less than $2,000/kg, then they'll easily be able to launch a Starlink competitor.
Honda built a rocket
Me: of course they did.
They launched the rocket
Me: naturally.
They landed the rocket.
Me: on the first try?
I hope they crush SpaceX one day.
By landing on them.
This wasn't much more than a toy rocket:
6.3 m in length, 85 cm in diameter,
The test was completed successfully, the first time Honda landed a rocket after reaching an altitude of nearly 300 meters.
But still they were successful on their first try, so we will have to see where they take it from here. 🚀
It's proof of tech. It'd be stupid and wasteful to do all the tests on a full size rocket.
There’s a YouTube channel called BPS Space where this guy spent 7 years learning how to land a model rocket space x style. He talked about how much you can learn about real rocket science even from a small model.
You mean like Starship?
Whatever they tested it's probably proof of that, but such a small rocket and only 300 meters means that a lot of things were not really proven, because scale is a HUGE issue.
Just ask Elon Musk / SpaceX, the Falcon rocket is fine, but Starship is horrible. And the difference is scale.
My buddy’s 2 million mile ‘95 civic says this is a sure bet
Of all the manufacturing companies, I would expect nothing less from Honda.
An alternative to.space junk clogging up the sky would indeed be nice.
It sounds like he's asking for more space junk.
Well this wouldn't be that. It would be a competitor to space junk, so increase the number of satellites in orbit by say 25%.
An alternative to anything related to Elon would be great.
Yeah, they could have a product ready by 2045! (If they hurry and make it a priority)
Honda is cool they build robotics and the best motorbikes in the world per cost
other motorbike, mix up at the factory, enjoy your rocket
I wonder how it feels when VTEC kicks in on a literal rocket
And Hyundai is making hydrogen powered tanks, what a world. I wonder if hydrogen fuels poses any unique risks as compared to petrol.
I wonder if hydrogen fuels poses any unique risks as compared to petrol.
It's highly explosive.
rather the opposite i'd say ... ready for take-off.
Honda giving a whole new meaning to crotch rocket.
Oh wait, it's an actual rocket!
I wanna buy one and see what it can do with an old 4 cylinder VTEC out of a Civic Si.
Genuinely curious: how many explosions before the successful test?
Apparently they got it right on the first try.
Now that's the real win.
TIL that honda has its own web domain
TLD*
But yes, same here.
Flying Honda Accord confirmed.
What the F is every corporation's boner with rockets? 🚀
Reusable rockets, in particular.
Imagine having a reusable car in a world where they were all disposable.
The Top Gear Reliant Robin launch reached 3000ft / 900m, although they were unable to stick the landing.
Idk, looks more like Hitachi
Not just for hard drives anymore.
What an ad. This is the second greatest YT video ever made.
How many went kaboom before this?
This is the first I have heard they were doing this. Makes spacex accomplishments less impressive. Fuck elon
I imagine they poached a lot of Spacex engineers by simply telling them “we won’t make you work ungodly hours, nor will we subject you to a narcissistic manchild with no engineering education dropping in on your meetings and trying to tell you how to do your job”
You do realize it’s Japan right? China, Japan, Korea all have work life balance issues.i wouldn’t want to work 996 or 007 lol
In Japan?
I bet they poached 0-3 engineers.
You left out the "but you have to learn Japanese and move to Japan" part of the job pitch. That makes it a harder sell for most people.
Tbf doesn’t he have a computer science degree? Which is a type of engineering degree?
Well, Honda is actually a competent company.
Hell yes. Any competition to musk is very much needed.
Go Honda.
Eh, it's just a start of development. It only goes 300 meters. Blue Origin goes higher, but even they aren't in orbit.
Japan also has some odd limitations on their rockets as part of their self defense only constitution. They don't build a rocket that could potentially be used to strike mainland Asia.
https://youtu.be/UZaIs6oSlOI
I know you’re likely referring to New Shepard but Blue Origin did make it to orbit with New Glenn
Something something the first 300 meters are the hardest...
Also, if you look at the pictures, it's not a very big rocket.
Um, no it doesn't... At all...
This is a first step landing test, not even suborbital, it flew to a height of 300 meters. This is the point that SpaceX was at in 2011 with their grasshopper rocket.
SpaceX is regularly landing orbital hardware and working on a fully reusable rocket with a greater lifting capacity than anything else ever. It's not really the same...
But fuck Elon, no argument there.
well Honda did this a decade later so there still is some achievement spacex has done 🤷
You have it the wrong way round. SpaceX's accomplishments are impressive despite Elon.
To be fair, they must've learned from the recent spacex accomplishments.
probably
no one in the private sector was gonna take that kind of risk for a while and then SpaceX took the gamble, won and now tons of players see vertical landing of rockets works so their all looking into it.
Up and down isn't a hard problem in the grand scheme of things. It's expensive and doesn't offer much benefit which is why people generally haven't bothered.
Going up and over at orbital velocities and coming back is the hard part, and none of these new spaces companies have done that successfully yet, and SpaceX has now done it with 2 vehicles and reused them both.
New Glenn from Blue Orgin might be the first after SpaceX but it blew up coming back on their first attempt, but it's been designed to be orbital and reusable