First Launch: 1980-01-18. Last Launch: 2014-08-20. Number: 54 . Longitude: 131.08 deg. Latitude: 31.25 deg.
See TRICOM 1. Japan attempted to launch a single cubesat into orbit with a launch vehicle massing less than 3 tonnes. The SS-520 sounding rocket was furnished with a 78 kg third stage which was intended to orbit a 3U, 3 kg cubesat, TRICOM-1. The mission was flight SS-520-4 (SS-520-1 and 2 were normal sounding rocket flights; 3 has not yet flown.) However, telemetry was lost 20 seconds into flight, during first stage burn. Following range safety rules, the command to ignite stage 2 was not sent and the vehicle flew a suborbital path to about 200 km altitude and then splashed down in the ocean. The record smallest successful orbital launch vehicle remains the 9.4-tonne Lambda 4S, also Japanese, which was retired in 1979.