In what has been described as "a fantastic achievement", Japan successfully launched a satellite on Saturday using the worlds lightest rocket outsmarting nations trying to develop cheaper light-weight rockets to cash in on the booming market for micro-satellites. The SS-520 rocket, about the size of a lamp post and 50 centimeters in diameter, lifted off from the Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima and placed its payload in the intended orbit, according to Japan's space agency JAXA.

The three-stage rocket carried a micro-satellite weighing about three kilograms developed by the University of Tokyo to collect imagery of the Earth's surface.