JAXA’s smallest rocket listed by Guinness records

April 27, 2018

Tokyo- The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced Friday that its SS520-5 is now recognized as the smallest orbital rocket by Guinness World Records.

The SS520-5, measuring 9.54 meters in height and 52 centimeters in diameter, is a three-stage solid rocket.

It was launched in February this year and successfully carried the 3-kilogram TRICOM-1 microsatellite, developed by the University of Tokyo, into orbit.

In an earlier listing for JAXA, the agency's Hayabusa unmanned probe mission to the asteroid Itokawa was recognized in 2011 by Guinness World Records as the first time for a spacecraft to collect samples from an asteroid and return to Earth. Jiji Press