Japan’s new solid-fuel rocket blasted off on Saturday, after two delays in late August, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.
The three-stage Epsilon rocket was launched at Uchinoura Space Centre in Kagoshima at 2 pm (0500 GMT), 950 kilometres south-west of Tokyo.
An hour later, the rocket was put into orbit, JAXA said.
It was the first launch of a new type of rocket in Japan since 2001.
The Epsilon, is 24.4 metre high and weighs 91 tons, about half the size of Japan’s mainstay H-2A rocket, and has been lauded as a low-cost and technologically advanced alternative.
On August 27, the launch was postponed due to an abnormality in its position, after another cancellation five days earlier due to a computer glitch.