Japan's second-largest carmaker, Honda, has successfully tested an experimental reusable space rocket on the nothern Japanese island of Hokkaido, the company said in a surprise announcement.

"The test was completed successfully, the first time Honda landed a rocket after reaching an altitude of nearly 300 meters (1,000 feet)," the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

The carmaker aims to achieve suborbital space flight in 2029. In 2021, Honda said it was studying space technologies such as reusable rockets but made no announcements prior to Tuesday's test.

"Honda has chosen to take on the technological challenge of developing reusable rockets by utilizing Honda technologies amassed in the development of various products and automated driving systems," it said.

The company said it has made no decisions regarding the commercialization of this technology but that it has "the potential to contribute more to people's daily lives by launching satellites with its own rockets, that could lead to various services that are also compatible with other Honda business."

It added that growing expectations for a "data system in outer space" will likely increase the demand for satellite launch rockets in coming years. 

The space race returns

NASA was the first to successfully test a reusable spacecraft with the Space Shuttle beginning in the 1980s. The booster rockets could be salvaged from the ocean and refurbished, while the Shuttle itself was designed to land like an airplane.

More recently, Elon Musk's SpaceX which is known for commercializing reusable rockets that land safely back on Earth. This has been used to establish the global satellite internet network Starlink.

Japan's space agency JAXA is also on a mission to become a major player in satellite launches. Japan's government has set up a multibillion-dollar space venture fund to subsidize private rockets, encouraging several Japanese startups to work on the reusable technology.

Meanwhile Honda's rival Toyota, which is the world's biggest automaker by sales, announced its investment in Japan's rocket maker Interstellar technologies, earlier this year.

Edited by: Zac Crellin