Skip to main content

S​outh Korea Launches Satellite With Its Own Rocket for the First Time

 

South Korea has announced that it successfully launched a small but working satellite into orbit using its first homemade rocket on ​Tuesday, bringing the country closer to its dream of becoming a new player in the space industry and deploying its own spy satellites to better monitor North Korea.


The three-stage Nuri rocket, built by the government’s Korea Aerospace Research Institute ​together with hundreds of local companies, ​blasted off from the Naro Space Center in Goheung​ on the southwestern tip of South Korea at 4 p.m. Tuesday.


Seventy minutes after the​ liftoff, South Korea announced that ​Nuri had succeeded in its mission of ​thrusting a ​357-pound ​working ​satellite, as well as a 1.3-ton dummy satellite​, into orbit ​435 miles above the Earth.


I​t was a moment of national pride, with the takeoff shown live on all the country’s major TV stations, as well as on its YouTube science channels. In the run-up to the launch, the government and local media had billed the Nuri mission as a momentous event through which South Korea would secure a foothold in space technology, the latest high-tech market where the country has decided to become a player.


“South Korea’s science and technology took a great step forward today,” said Lee Jong-ho, the government’s science and technology minister, announcing the mission’s success during a nationally ​televised news conference. “We have laid the foundation for launching our own satellites when we want to, no longer having to depend on other countries’ rockets and launch stations.”

For decades, South Korea has nurtured an ambition to join the elite club of nations capable of launching communications and other satellites in orbit using domestic rockets. It also wanted to send its own surveillance satellites into space to better monitor ​a ​growing nuclear and missile ​threat from North Korea.


After multiple delays and failures, South Korea put a satellite into orbit for research and development purposes for the first time in 2013. But the two-stage rocket used for that mission — Naro — was built jointly with Russia. South Korea has spent nearly 1.9 trillion won ($1.5 billion) to develop the 200-ton Nuri, also known as the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-II, with its own technology.

In the first test launch of Nuri last October, the rocket pushed a 1.5-ton dummy satellite to space 434 miles above the Earth. But it developed a problem in its oxidizer tank and burned out sooner than planned, failing to give the dummy satellite enough speed to stabilize and stay in orbit.​ ​

In its second ​test ​launch on Tuesday, Nuri was​ carrying not only a​ ​1​.3-ton dummy satellite​ but also a 357-pound performance verification satellite​. This marked the first time South Korea has launched a​ real working​ satellite on board a domestic rocket.

The launch on Tuesday highlighted an arms race on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea has no military spy satellites of its own, relying instead on American satellites to watch North Korea. As the North’s missile threats have grown, ​however, ​South Korea ​has wanted to place its​ own​ “eyes and ears” in space ​using its own rocket​s​.


North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, told a Workers’ Party meeting last year that his government had completed the design of a military reconnaissance satellite. He said his country would deploy the satellite in the near future​.


The United Nations Security Council bans North Korea from launching space rockets because it said they were used by Pyongyang to develop long-range ballistic missiles. In defiance of this ban, North Korea launched satellite space vehicles before it successfully tested three intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2017.


Between Feb. 27 and May 25, ​it conducted six missile tests that involved I.C.B.M.s or I.C.B.M. components, according to ​United States and South Korean officials. In the first two of those tests, North Korea said it was testing a satellite launch vehicle.


North Korea has​ ​accused South Korea and the United States of “double standards” for expanding ​their own space program​s​ while condemning ​the North’s space projects as a cover for a weapons program​.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hurricane Hits Texas, One Person Reported Dead

Hurricane Harvey hit Texas as a Category 4 storm on Friday, battering the coast with 130-mph winds and torrential rain. It was the strongest hurricane to hit the United States in more than a decade leaving a massive destruction, loss of electricity, wrecked buildings and has so far killed at least one person. Scroll down to see more pictures of the incident:
Post a Comment
Read more

Togo prime Minister Komi Klassou resigns

Togo’s prime minister and his government have resigned, the West African nation’s presidency said late Friday. President Faure Gnassingbe congratulated prime minister Komi Selom Klassou and his team for their “economic, political and social efforts and the encouraging results despite the health crisis around the world”, a statement on the presidency’s official website said. Togo has been due for a political reshuffle since Gnassingbe was reelected in February for a fourth term in office, but changes were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. The president’s election win, which came after a constitutional change allowing him to run, extended more than a half-century of dynastic rule over the former French colony by the Gnassingbe family. The victory was disputed by the main opposition challenger, who has faced official harassment in the wake of the vote. The president has led the country of eight million people since taking over in 2005 following the death of his father Gnass...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kenyan Law Court dismisses case of man seeking compensation after his wife eloped with another man from hospital

  A lawsuit filed by a man seeking to be compensated by St Mary's Mission Hospital in Kenya for allowing his wife to leave the hospital with another man after giving birth, has been struck out by a law court.    The appellant had sued the St. Mary's Mission hospital at Kakamega law courts in 2020 seeking general damages from the facility on grounds that the hospital had discharged his wife and allowed her to leave with another man. After delivering and at the time of discharge, the wife of the appellant claimed he was the baby's father.   The court of appeal judges Patrick Kiage, Mumbi Ngugi and Francis Tuiyott sitting at the Kisumu Court of Appeal, empathized with the man, but disagreed that he (the appellant) be compensated by the hospital for not detaining his wife.  They upheld the lower court's judgement which added that there's no remedy that lies in the law for such grievances.   Kiage said;   "I agree that if a man takes the woman he loves to t...
Post a Comment
Read more