A rocket engine exploded during a test in Japan on Friday, but there were no injuries in the incident, an official at Japan’s Education, Science and Technology Ministry said, Ednews reports citing Reuters.
The explosion of the Epsilon S engine at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) testing site in northern Japan is a further blow to the country’s space ambitions, following a series of failures earlier this year.
The explosion took place about a minute into the test of the second stage engine, the official said.
Television footage showed flames shooting out the side of a testing facility before the whole small building was engulfed in flames and the roof blew off.
Japan’s space program has suffered a number of setbacks recently, including failure of its medium-lift rocket on its debut flight in March, when second-stage engine did not ignite as planned. Another launch was aborted a month earlier.