As a result, the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) will end up spending nine billion yen (84 million dollars) to launch the H-2A next year just to test its performance, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.

The H-2A rocket, a high-performance but cheaper version of the H-2, was scheduled to carry a European data-transmission satellite in the launch in February.

The European Space Agency spent 100 billion yen in developing the geostationary satellite. NASDA had promised the ESA it would launch the satellite for free in return for its joint use.

But the launch had been jeopardised after NASDA said in July that the main H-2A engine failed during a test, when liquid hydrogen leaked out of a fuel tank and ignited in contact with oxygen.

The agency concluded it would have to redesign the engine after the accident and this could take more than a year, the newspaper said.

The H2-A will now go up without a payload as NASDA engineers "believe that a test-launch will reveal what parts of the rocket, beside the liquid hydrogen turbo pump of the first-stage booster, need to be modified," it said.

"Since one H2-A rocket costs about nine billion yen to manufacture, it is unusual in this country for a domestically manufactured, large-sized rocket to be launched without carrying a satellite."

The setback was a major blow to Japan's ambitions to enter the international market for commercial satellite launches, the newspaper said.

But NASDA spokesman Yoichi Fujita said it had not been decided yet whether to abandon the satellite launch.

"We have not reached any decision yet," he told AFP.

"Our decision on the issue will be made tomorrow when the Science and Technology Agency's working-level meeting on technical evaluation on the rocket will be held."

Any abandonment would mark the latest embarrassment to Japan's space programme following several rocket launch failures.

Last November, space authorities exploded a 24-billion-yen H-2 rocket and satellite by remote control when it veered off course after lift-off.

In February 1998, a 36-million-dollar satellite was lost in space despite a successful separation from an H-2 rocket because it was released at the wrong altitude and sent into an elliptical orbit.

The H-2 is Japan's answer to Europe's successful Ariane-4.

The spectacular rocket failures forced NASDA to postpone the launch of the H-2A rocket, orginally set for last February.

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