The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency hopes next year to begin full-scale development of the Advanced Solid Rocket, its proposed launcher for medium-size scientific payloads. A first flight of the three-stage ASR, to be built by IHI Aerospace, should follow in 2012 or 2013, sustaining the solid-propellant expertise that Japan has built up since launching pencil-size rockets in the mid-1950s.
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