According to the Central News Agency (CNA), the launch of the rocket, designed by the Advanced Rocket Research Center (ARRC), took place on July 10 at 06:12 (22:12 GMT, Saturday) from a launch site in Pingtung's Mudan Township, located in the southern part of Taiwan.
Under the initial flight plan, the rocket was expected to reach a top altitude of 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) during an 8-10 minute flight. However, during the test launch, it stayed in the air for two minutes, reaching an altitude of three kilometers.
Despite the low altitude, the test demonstrated a "major technological breakthrough," the ARRC was quoted as saying by the CNA.
The ARRC added that the launch was a test of the second-stage rocket, while the test of the first-stage rocket, as well as the separation mechanism, could take place early next year.
HTTP is a sounding rocket that can carry scientific equipment. It is named after the four cities in which the cooperative universities of the ARRC are located — Hsinchu, Taipei, Tainan, and Pingtung. The chairman of the ARRC, Professor Jong-Shinn Wu, associated the HTTP rocket with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, saying that the possibilities of the rocket could be unlimited, similar to the internet.