Japan's H-II rocket suffered its only launch failure, shutting down four minutes after liftoff when a first-stage LE-7 engine turbopump blade fractured from fatigue. The roughly $95 million MTSAT-1 weather and aviation-communications satellite was destroyed; it was the H-II's final flight.
- Outcome
- Failure
- Orbit
- Direct-GEO
- Geostationary orbit
- Payload to orbit
- Did not reach orbit
- Flight
- 7th
- of 7 H-II flights
- Date and time
- 15 November 1999, 07:29 UTC
- Rocket
- H-II
- Builder
- MHI
- Launch site
- Yoshinobu Launch Complex LP-1, Tanegashima Space Center, Japan
- Payload
- Communications
- Launches in 1999
- 64th of 78