S-Series is a fleet of sounding rockets funded by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) that have been in service since the late 1960s.

The S-160 had a maximum flight altitude of 80 kilometers, a launch mass of 100 kg, a diameter of 160 mm and a length of 4 meters.

The propellant grain of the motor included Hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) binder, making it better suited for the cold temperatures of the Antarctic launch site.

[8] The first flight of S-310 in January 1975 was successful, and it has been launched at Kagoshima Space Center at Uchinoura, Showa Station in Antarctica and Andøya in Norway.

It is an active single-stage sounding rocket capable of launching a 100 kg payload above 300 km and provided more than five minutes of micro-gravity flight for experiments.

[10][citation needed] When used as a suborbital sounding rocket, it can launch a 140 kilograms (310 lb) payload to an altitude between 800 and 1000 km.

3 minutes into the flight, controllers sent an abort code commanding the second stage not to ignite after separation and the rocket fell into the ocean within the range safety area.

Liftoff from Uchinoura Space Center occurred at the opening of a ten-minute window at 14:03 local time (05:03 UTC), successfully deploying the TRICOM-1R CubeSat.