Honda Motor launched and soft-landed a 6.3-meter reusable rocket in Taiki Town, Hokkaido, demonstrating ascent-descent stability and pinpoint return—“within 37 cm of the target touchdown point”—after a 271.4-meter hop that lasted 56.6 seconds.
“Honda has made another step forward in our research on reusable rockets,” Global CEO Toshihiro Mibe said, calling the programme “a meaningful endeavour that leverages Honda’s technological strengths.”
The prototype—85 cm in diameter, 900 kg dry, and 1,312 kg wet—demonstrated stable thrust modulation on ascent and active vectoring on descent. An onboard termination system would have shut down the engine had the vehicle deviated from a predefined flight corridor, satisfying Japan’s Cabinet Office safety guidelines.
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Telemetry gathered during the hop will feed software iterations aimed at higher-altitude hover slam tests and, ultimately, sub-orbital campaigns.
Honda cordoned off a one-kilometre exclusion zone calculated to contain blast-wave, debris-dispersion and fireball footprints in a worst-case abort. Local authorities approved the plan, and the test proceeded with no reported violations.
The company has run engine firings and static hover trials at Taiki since 2024, making Tuesday’s exercise its first fully integrated flight.
Honda has not committed to monetising the technology but targets sub-orbital capability by 2029. Industry forecasts from Northern Sky Research project the small-satellite launch market to exceed US$30 billion in the same period, driven by broadband constellations and Earth observation demand.
If Honda moves beyond the “fundamental research phase,” its manufacturing scale could pressure incumbent expendable rocket suppliers on price and cadence, while offering Japan a domestic alternative for satellite lift.
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