South Korea’s homegrown space rocket Nuri lifts off from Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, southwestern South Korea, in this file photo taken June 21, 2022, as the country makes a second attempt to put satellites into orbit. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — The third launch of Nuri, the country’s first homegrown space rocket, will be held in early May, following last year’s successful second test-firing, the state space institute said Tuesday.
“A launch management team will be formed in late March, and Nuri will be fired in early May as planned,” Choi Hwan-seok, who is in charge of the Nuri project at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, said in a press conference.
“We think we are ready to accomplish the mission if the government announces the third launch.”
He said a government meeting to check the development of satellites to be loaded on the space rocket will be held later this week as a first step for the launch in May.
The upcoming launch is the follow-up of Nuri’s second successful launch in June last year.
The 200-ton Nuri, also known as KSLV-II, successfully completed its flight sequence and deployed satellites at the target altitude of 700 kilometers as planned after blasting off from the Naro Space Center in the country’s southern coastal village of Goheung.
It was Nuri’s second liftoff after its first attempt ended in failure in 2020, when the rocket successfully flew to its target altitude of 700 kilometers but failed to put a dummy satellite into orbit, as its third-stage engine burned out earlier than expected.
Lee Sang-ryool, the president of KARI, said the preparation for the third launch is well on track.
“It might be best for us to follow the steps of the second launch,” he said. “The third launch will be the same as the previous one, but its target trajectory and the planned separation of satellites will be slightly different.”
He said the rocket will be loaded with the country’s second next-generation small satellite and four satellites developed by the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, codenamed SNIPE, for the third flight.
The SNIPE satellites were originally scheduled to be launched by a Russian rocket last year, but the plan was scrapped due to the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war.
South Korea aims to conduct four additional Nuri rocket launches, including the one for 2023, by 2027.
The country has also launched a preliminary feasibility study for the successor to the Nuri, with the goal of sending a lunar landing module to the moon in 2031.
(Yonhap)
