Honda's Playing with Robots and Reusable Rockets—Look Out, Tesla and SpaceX?

Not content with going fast on Earth's surface with its turbocharged Civic Type R—not to mention its Formula 1 and IndyCar racing engines—Honda is continuing to work on its aeronautical dreams, following up its Honda Jet with... space travel. This isn't a joke. The automaker (or, at least, an arm of the automaker, Honda R&D Co. Limited) is working on rockets, and just successfully launched its first experimental reusable rocket from the Hokkaido Prefecture in Japan. No word if the rocket engine uses VTEC to increase its power; most likely it uses literal rocket fuel.

See All 9 Photos9

The 20.67-foot tall, 33.47-inch diameter rocket was launched by Honda R&D at 4:15 pm local time and hit an altitude of 890.42 feet. It launched with a fully fueled weight of 2,892.47 pounds and was in the air for a total of 56.6 seconds before landing just 14.57 inches from its designated touchdown point.

While not an orbital flight, this adventure was a test to see if Honda's rocket has the ability and stability for flight, descent, and landing capability and survivability. These are all critical data points for a reusable rocket, something that is still a struggle for even a seasoned company like SpaceX—the rocket and space communication company owned by Tesla owner, Elon Musk, that famously lands its booster stages on land and even barges at sea for later reuse, greatly reducing the costs of space launches.

See All 9 Photos9

Why is Honda launching a rocket today? It’s part of their initiative to expand beyond just airplanes and automobiles and to venture into space technology. The rocket venture was first announced in 2021 and will include research into renewable energy system, space robotics, and reusable rockets beyond this experimental one.

As of right now, Honda isn’t immediately trying to become a commercial space launch company—to the potential relief of Musk, given Honda’s reliability record—but Honda does have a plan in place to take a rocket suborbital by 2029. Meaning they want to send a rocket into space, but it won’t circle the Earth just yet.

While the launch is an exciting development for Honda, and there are amusing parallels between its work on rockets, humanoid robots, and other advanced tech and what Tesla (lately on a humanoid robot kick) and SpaceX (longtime private space company) are up to—even if each company's efforts aren't chronologically simpatico. (Honda's Asimo robot is decades old, while its rockets are new—Tesla and SpaceX are the opposite.)

So far, there isn't word that there will be an Acura-badged version of the rocket with Super-Handling All-Weather Descent mode (an obvious riff off Super-Handling All-Wheel Drive...) or whether the eventual rocket will get red-colored Type R badges. What? We ran out of VTEC jokes two paragraphs ago, and like Honda, we're just trying to stick the landing here.