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Japan Launches Navigation Satellite on New Flagship Rocket for Improved Positioning System

The H3 Launch Vehicle No. 5, carrying the Quasi-Zenith Satellite "Michibiki No. 6," lifts off at a launch pad in Tanegashima Space Center in Tanegashima, southern Japan, Sunday Feb. 2, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)
The H3 Launch Vehicle No. 5, carrying the Quasi-Zenith Satellite "Michibiki No. 6," lifts off at a launch pad in Tanegashima Space Center in Tanegashima, southern Japan, Sunday Feb. 2, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)
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Japan Launches Navigation Satellite on New Flagship Rocket for Improved Positioning System

The H3 Launch Vehicle No. 5, carrying the Quasi-Zenith Satellite "Michibiki No. 6," lifts off at a launch pad in Tanegashima Space Center in Tanegashima, southern Japan, Sunday Feb. 2, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)
The H3 Launch Vehicle No. 5, carrying the Quasi-Zenith Satellite "Michibiki No. 6," lifts off at a launch pad in Tanegashima Space Center in Tanegashima, southern Japan, Sunday Feb. 2, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)

Japan on Sunday launched a navigation satellite on its new flagship H3 rocket as the country seeks to have a more precise location positioning system of its own.

The H3 rocket carrying the Michibiki 6 satellite successfully lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center on a southwestern Japanese island. Everything so far has been as planned, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said.

Japan currently has the quasi-zenith satellite system, or QZSS, with four satellites for a regional navigation system that first went into operation in 2018. The Michibiki 6 will be the fifth of its network.

Michibiki’s signals are used to supplement American GPS to improve positioning data for smartphones, car and maritime navigation and drones.

Japan plans to launch two more navigation satellites to have a seven-satellite system by March 2026 in order to have a more precise global positioning capability without relying on foreign services, including the US, according to the Japan Science and Technology Agency. By the late 2030s, Japan plans to have an 11-satellite network.

Sunday's launch, delayed by one day due to the weather, was the fourth consecutive successful flight for the H3 system after a shocking failed debut attempt last year when the rocket had to be destroyed with its payload.

Japan sees a stable, commercially competitive space transport capability as key to its space program and national security and has been developing two new flagship rockets as successors to the mainstay H2A series — the larger H3 and a much smaller Epsilon system. It hopes to cater to diverse customer needs and improve its position in the growing satellite launch market.

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US: Tourist Arrested after Video Shows Rock Hurled at Endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal's Head

Igor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk was charged with harassing and attempting to harass a protected animal after being seen throwing a rock at a Hawaiian monk seal. Photo: US Attorney's Office District of Hawaii
Igor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk was charged with harassing and attempting to harass a protected animal after being seen throwing a rock at a Hawaiian monk seal. Photo: US Attorney's Office District of Hawaii
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US: Tourist Arrested after Video Shows Rock Hurled at Endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal's Head

Igor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk was charged with harassing and attempting to harass a protected animal after being seen throwing a rock at a Hawaiian monk seal. Photo: US Attorney's Office District of Hawaii
Igor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk was charged with harassing and attempting to harass a protected animal after being seen throwing a rock at a Hawaiian monk seal. Photo: US Attorney's Office District of Hawaii

A tourist who drew widespread condemnation in Hawaii after a witness recorded him chucking a coconut-sized rock at “Lani,” a beloved, endangered Hawaiian monk seal off a Maui beach, was arrested Wednesday by federal agents.

Igor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk, 38, of Covington, Washington, is charged with harassing a protected animal, the US attorney's office in Honolulu said, adding that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration special agents arrested him near Seattle. He was scheduled to appear in US District Court in Seattle on Thursday.

The court docket didn’t list an attorney, and a person who answered the phone at a number associated with Lytvynchuk declined to comment.

A state Department of Land and Natural Resources officer last week investigated a report of Hawaiian monk seal harassment in Lahaina, the community that was largely destroyed by a deadly wildfire in 2023. A witness showed the officer video of the seal swimming in shallow water while a man watched from shore, The Associated Press reported.

“In the cellphone video, the man can be seen holding a large rock with one hand, aiming, and throwing it directly at the monk seal," prosecutors said a criminal complaint. The rock, described by a witness as the size of a coconut, narrowly missed the seal's head, but caused the “animal to abruptly alter its behavior,” the complaint said.

When a witness confronted the man, he said "he did not care and was ‘rich’ enough to pay any fines," the complaint said.

Maui Mayor Richard Bissen, in a video posted on social media after the incident, vowed consequences for anyone who harms Hawaii's wildlife.

“Many of our residents know her, watch over her and care deeply about her well-being,” he said. “Lani, we have your back.”

Lytvynchuk is charged with harassing and attempting to harass an endangered Hawaiian monk seal.

Hawaiian monk seals are a critically endangered species. Only 1,600 remain in the wild.

If convicted, Lytvynchuk, faces up to one year in prison for each charge. He also faces a fine of up to $50,000 under the Endangered Species Act and a fine of up to $20,000 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

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Historic Swiss Solar-powered Plane Crashes Into Sea

(FILES) The Solar Impulse 2 solar powered airplane flies off Kapolei, Hawaii, on March 3, 2016 on a all-day test flight. (Photo by Eugene TANNER / AFP)
(FILES) The Solar Impulse 2 solar powered airplane flies off Kapolei, Hawaii, on March 3, 2016 on a all-day test flight. (Photo by Eugene TANNER / AFP)
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Historic Swiss Solar-powered Plane Crashes Into Sea

(FILES) The Solar Impulse 2 solar powered airplane flies off Kapolei, Hawaii, on March 3, 2016 on a all-day test flight. (Photo by Eugene TANNER / AFP)
(FILES) The Solar Impulse 2 solar powered airplane flies off Kapolei, Hawaii, on March 3, 2016 on a all-day test flight. (Photo by Eugene TANNER / AFP)

The experimental plane Solar Impulse 2, which completed a historic round-the-world trip in 2016 without using jet fuel, crashed into the Gulf of Mexico recently, its owner revealed.

Flown by Swiss pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, Solar Impulse 2 circumnavigated the globe in 17 stages, covering a remarkable 26,700 miles (43,000 kilometers) across four continents, two oceans and three seas, in 23 days of flying without using a drop of fuel.

Three years after the globe-trotting flight, the solar-powered vessel was sold to Skydweller Aero, which converted the aircraft into a drone to carry out "controlled ditching," the company said in a press release issued Tuesday.

Skydweller Aero said Solar Impulse 2 took off from Stennis, Mississippi on April 26 but crashed into the Gulf of Mexico on May 4, AFP reported.

"Ultimately, a record-breaking flight of 8 days and 14 minutes validates the reality of perpetual, solar-powered flight in a military mission-relevant environment," the company said, in reference to a US Navy exercise in which the vessel was used.

The US National Transportation Safety Board said it was investigating the accident.

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'Ocean Dream' Blue-green Diamond Sells for More Than $17 Million at Christie's

A Christie's employee displays "The Ocean Dream," the largest fancy vivid blue-green diamond, weighting 5.50 carats, during a preview at Christie's in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, May 7, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
A Christie's employee displays "The Ocean Dream," the largest fancy vivid blue-green diamond, weighting 5.50 carats, during a preview at Christie's in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, May 7, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
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'Ocean Dream' Blue-green Diamond Sells for More Than $17 Million at Christie's

A Christie's employee displays "The Ocean Dream," the largest fancy vivid blue-green diamond, weighting 5.50 carats, during a preview at Christie's in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, May 7, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
A Christie's employee displays "The Ocean Dream," the largest fancy vivid blue-green diamond, weighting 5.50 carats, during a preview at Christie's in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, May 7, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)

A 5.5-carat triangular-cut diamond billed as the largest fancy vivid blue-green diamond known to exist sold for more than 13.5 million Swiss francs ($17.3 million) on Wednesday, Christie’s said, calling it a record price for a stone of its kind sold at auction.

The “Ocean Dream,” the standout offer at the auction house's Geneva sale of jewelry, was found in Central Africa in the 1990s. The price easily topped the presale estimate to fetch 7-10 million francs (around $9-13 million), The Associated Press reported.

Rahul Kadakia, president of Christie's Asia Pacific, said that an unspecified private client was the buyer, and the stone took about 20 minutes to sell — an indication that interest was high.

The price was more than double that of the roughly $8.5 million that the gem, which was featured among rare colored diamonds at the Smithsonian Splendour of Diamonds Exhibition in 2003, sold for at Christie's in 2014.

“A stellar result worthy of the world’s rarest blue-green diamond,” Tobias Kormind, managing director of online jeweler 77 Diamonds, said in a statement.

On Tuesday, a 6-carat fancy vivid blue diamond at a Geneva auction at Sotheby's didn't sell.

The auction house said that the rare stone unearthed from South Africa’s famed Cullinan mine had come in with a presale estimate of 7.2 million to 9.6 million francs ($9.2 million to $12.3 million).

“Although the diamond didn’t find a buyer during the auction, we are now in conversations with several interested parties and are confident that it will find a new home soon,” Sotheby’s said in a statement.

Both houses say collectors are increasingly drawn to rare, colored diamonds, which make up only a fraction of all the diamonds mined around the world.