The Smallest Rocket - The SS-520-5 

So Scott, you’re telling me, in short, that this is basically the worlds largest model rocket.

One closer to pizza delivery to the ISS.

Police officer: Sir, what is that in your car? Me: An orbital capable rocket.

They should have called it quark, because it's smaller than the electron

I'm glad you clarified with "made into orbit" because I was about to bust out a super condescending "I made a smaller one when I was 10."

The Japanese just really like their small and cute things. Now someone needs to anthropomorphize it. I need Rocket-Chan in my life.

Looks and flies like the Estes rockets I flew as a kid. Of course, mine were...um... sub-orbital.

"Japanese rocket so small, you Americans have such humongous bulbous rockets" - south park called it

Congratulations to JAXA. Even if it's not financially viable, it's still technologically impressive, and very neat.

This is freaky. Just looked up the SS-520 half an hour ago wondering why I haven't seen a video of it and then here we have it

If you have to guess what caused any piece of space hardware to catastrophically fail, "frayed wiring" is a classic.

it would be cool if you made a video on JAXA's history, or perhaps the history of other smaller space programs. I don't really know barely anything JAXA has done

IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW BIG IT IS, IT'S HOW YOU USE IT Right? ;o;

falcon heavy + SS-520-5 = finally able to do the kerbal-level feat of getting to orbit, deorbiting, and then getting to orbit again!

way to go Jaxa, innovating once again

I like that they just use butcher paper for the third stage fairing.

Thank you Scott 👍🏻

This is the Japanese engineering philosophy all over. Back in the 1980s, we were happy with our portable ghetto blasters which were far smaller than our home hi-fi units. The Japanese laughed, "You call that small?" Boom! they invent the Walkman.

The big question is how much does it cost

you can easily fit multiple of these in a 8'x8'x40' ISO Container, and put those on the Space Shuttle. btw, the auto-predict text says Space Core when I said space SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE

In the 1990's, I was very much into model rockets and even flew a few 'High Powered' rockets. I always asked myself, what's the minimum sized rocket you can use to get to orbit and... there's the answer!

Seems almost Kerbal scale.

Your videos are gaining in views again, I see. That's great!

A followup video explaining the guidance would be cool. I thought I read that the rocket fins spin stabilized it and then 40 some-odd little charges on the side fired in sync with the rotation to tip the rocket over to the correct orientation for the orbital insertion. That is, it sounded like the nozzle's didn't gimble. Would love to know more!

Interesting. Thanks for actual launch footage, I usually only see the animation.

The damn little bastard is adorable.

Not that it's super important, but the launch site is Uchinoura, pronounced Oo-chi-no-oo-rah (with no emphasis on any syllable). I live in the area, FYI (You can see terrible videos of an Epsilon launch I took from the same launch site).

Quite impressive !!

I love you Scott, you're one of the smartest people I've ever seen.

Interesting video Scott

No wonder no one noticed .. IT'S BLOODY TINY!!!

do you think we will ever come to a point where these small launchers can be mass produced? It would be cool if instead of your school doing a time capsule, you do a space capsule.

Man, I need to get down to Kyushu to see a JAXA launch at some point.

That's awesome !! Quite the achievement. Kudos. Oh, I realized this was >4 years ago .... still very impressive.

Just 3 days between the world's smallest rocket and the world's largest rocket.

Amazing ! Is the third stage use to "circularize" the orbit a bit more by firing it a the optimum time based on telemetry data ? And is a non circulized orbit bad for a cub-sat usage?

Great achievement !

This seems like a good goal for my new rocket hobby 🤔

Give it to the falt-earthers so they can check for themselves how much they are wrong :D

incredible

You can launch things into space from your backyard with that thing.

Trust Japan to make the most kawaii rocket~ 🤗

Of course, going by JAXA's official naming scheme, the orbital version of the SS-520 should really be called the _SSS-520,_ since it has three stages.

How much does this cost? Can I afford my own satellite now?

Japan proving yet again that it isn’t the size that counts, it’s how you use it.

Excellent platform for a kinetic kill vehicle, though.

Any chance you could do another ksp realism overhaul series, Scott? These small rockets reminded me of it.

Great times we are livin'

hey Scott, neat video. Whats the lightest SRB rocket u can orbit in Kerbal?

Scott - what do you think of cubesats? Do they all have to have the capability to de-orbit themselves these days? or are they likely contributors to the Kessler syndrome if they're launched in large numbers?

Thanks for explaining. Could costs be reduced to make it economical?

Nice!

Scott, did you know that the former smallest orbital rocket was also built by Japan? The Lambda-4S! I would love to see you cover that one as well.

I actually think you could find a use for that rocket. Imagine the following: One of the hardest things to do is inclination, because it's bound mostly to the launchpads position. Having such a tiny and maybe portable rocket means you could put payloads into any imaginable inclination.

Working on a CubeSat myself, I'd be curious, how much did the launch cost? :)

I can't even launch my school bag into orbit

If anyone was going to get the world record for making the smallest of something technical like an orbital class rocket, you'd expect it to be the Japanese.

Did they send a hot wheels car for the test flight?

very very interesting. If money wasn't an issue it would be nice to always have a few of these on hand and ready to launch in case of emergencies.

Smallest rocket? Cool!

thats a good idea to have as a supply rocket, change some stuff and its probably easier to make then most rockets and its fast

How about the rail launchpad? And other launchpad variations?

Wow that's really cool! How heavy of a payload can it send up?

I wonder if the SS-520-5 or something derived from it could be used as part of a Mars sample return mission (as the rocket for launching a small amount of soil/rock back into Mars orbit)?

4:04 Ha! I've been doing that in KSP for ages! lol 🤪

This is awesome! Just imagine that you could buy a small orbital rocket in a few years at a home improvement store for a few thousand dollars and launch whatever you want into orbit

Hey Scott, what was your source for the rocket investigation? I'd love to read it.

Oi, Scott. I'm a long time viewer and want to say good job but need a favor if you don't mind. I recently bought ksp for ps4 and damn if I can't figure out how to make maneuver nodes. First time playing, ever, started on career and space was easy. Orbit in an hour on career but I couldn't get to the mun in two because of those nodes. Anyway hope you see this and have a good evening Mr. Manley

Any idea what the cost of sending that cubesat to space?

Still adorable.

Would be nice to send a small private satellite (for reasons) to space :D Love your Videos Scott

On this kind of level I wonder if a space gun combo could make it much cheaper, as in launch a smaller rocket a couple miles up and then do the burn.

So this small rocket can be carried to somewhere over 5000 meters mountain in the Everest or the Andese or anywhere else high near to the equator, and can perform much higher yield as it not even gain 5000 meters height advance, but allready left behind most of the dense atmosphere. This means higher payload, or higher orbit, or both with cheap side boosters.

Great!!!!!

Hi Scot Manley cool 😎 video 🇬🇧❤️David

Could an SM-3 Block IIA launch a tiny sat into orbit?

What about Estes? Seriously, though, that rocket as an upper stage, INSIDE the fairing, interesting and very strange concept. Man, that thing was encountering some VICIOUS sheer up there! I would have been biting my lip, thinking "hang together, baby".

hey scott i have a question! if you shrunk an orbital rocket down couldn't you still get to orbit?

Nice

Nice. What is the initial TWR of that thing?

Could FB use a rocket like this to put up their LEO internet service they were promoting a while back??? Excellent video Mr Manly :-)

aww i love it when mr Manley compares real life to Kerbal hahaa :)

The one dislike is Elon Musk.

So what is the comparision to the Rocket Lab Electron rocket in size and capabilities?

I found out about this launch on the app launch alarm. So I followed JAXA on RU-vid and tried to watch the launch live. However, it was super choppy and kept cutting out, so I was unable to watch the launch.

That coupled to a Falcon Heavy in expendable mode. Delta V total on that would be enormous...

Could this be used to send emergency supplies to ISS?

If you wanted to launch a lot of cube-sats, would it be more efficient to use many small rockets like this, or one big rocket like the Falcon 9? I know normally bulk = more efficient, but does "The Tyranny of the Rocket Equation" make a difference here?

I was thinking about how similair the launch is to KSP and there it came, the KSP reference. :-)

I wonder if they mounted this rocket on top of a lander and launch it on Falcon Heavy could it be used to return a sample from one of Jupiter's moons or even Pluto?

What factor changes that makes a bigger rocket more cost effective than a smaller rocket?

"the final orbit they ended up with was actually slightly higher than they expected" I always assumed that in the modern space age you needed to be careful launching satellites to put them in an orbit that wouldn't interfere with any of the existing satellites. just how crowded is LEO these days. and how much consideration needs to be given to not crashing into things.

Can you cover the JAXA S-520-31...?

Not economical? I'm curious by what factor. I don't suppose they gave a cost of launching the cubesat into orbit? I'm sure the small size would give it some kind of a trade off somewhere. A majority, if not all of the larger launch systems, you need massive facilities and ground support, just to get the thing built, sent to the pad and off the ground. Now I wish I had some cash, or something. Kind of makes me want to send a radio cubesat into orbit now. Then again, in recent days, I've been checking on a number of satellite based HAM radio subjects and videos. I can see the field growing quite a bit, as things become more and more accessible to people. Kudos for sharing, otherwise, ya, it would have been completely overlooked by the Falcon Heavy. :)

I'm going to build a sugar rocket and shoot my phone into space showing a picture of Jeb.

So is the third stage on this rocket (and last stages of other rockets) deorbited after it separates from the payload? The last stage on any rocket would end up in orbit with the payload since its the last thing to burn. I think I remember hearing the falcon 9 second stage is, but this one's last stage looks so tiny. And it seems any thrusters on it for deorbiting would add such a relativily large amount of mass to it.

What would be the height of the orbit if the same amount of energy went into it, but perfectly circularized?

Oh that's a nice military application. Load em like a starlink launch. Deploy them over whatever target. Payload of small nuclear arms. Game changer 🤔

Hey Scott, I have a question: what would it take for the Earth to become a moon of Jupiter? I mean, realistically and in terms of energy.

Hullo Scott. Could this design be weaponised?