Whose head(s) will roll over Naro fiasco?

By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff reporter

It would be extremely unfair to call the Korea Space Launch Vehicle I (KSLV-I) a $400 million firecracker. Rockets are in a rare business where success rates in the middling double digits are acceptable, and the majority of previous launch failures involved the rocket blowing up some way or another.

So while the KSLV-I explosion last week, which represented the country’s second major space setback in less than a year, was certainly a letdown, it shouldn’t be thought of as more than a speed-bump in the national efforts to carve a niche in the aerospace industry.

However, the ineptitude and ill-grace displayed during the bungled build-up to Thursday’s launch obviously qualify as legitimate reasons for concern. It’s debatable whether the current leadership of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), as well as the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, can guide the country’s space aspirations forward, and there seems to be many reasons to worry that they might derail it instead.

Korean officials and engineers and their Russian technology partners began the official practice of failure analysis Monday by convening their first failure review board (FRB) meeting.

While officials at the Science Ministry and KARI are fully occupied in the efforts to rope the Russians into a new rocket launch, they have been avoiding questions on whether the KSLV-I was indeed ready to fly ahead of the scheduled 5:01 p.m. launch Thursday.

The preparation for the launch was interrupted repeatedly by unexpected technical problems.

But what if the problems were merely symptoms, but not the disease? Did the engineers at the Naro Space Center, pressured by government officials eager for quick results, remove the traffic cones before realizing they missed something important?

In explaining why the launch was presumably off then on again in the span of 30 minutes late Monday, Min Kyung-ju, the director of the Naro Space Center, inadvertently admitted that there was pressure to meet the deadline.

There were engineers who had requested to take a more careful look at the launch pad’s cable-mast, which holds telemetry cables that connect the rocket with the launch support system, but then an ``agreement’’ was made that it was safe enough to proceed with the launch, Min said.

The science ministry, which had Vice Minister Kim Jung-hyun calling the shots at the scene, had repeatedly expressed its determination to pull off the launch ahead of the June 19 close of the launch window. And the Russians, who displayed caution ahead of the first KSLV-I launch last year, may not have resisted pressure to loosen up.

Exhaustion could have been an issue for the 150-man team of Russian engineers, who had been stuck on the tiny Oenaro Island since April to prepare for the KSLV-1 sequel. Just days before the scheduled launch, a member of the Russian staff attempted suicide during a day off in a Busan leisure district, and police told reporters that the man admitted feeling homesick.

The two KSLV-Is were the result of a 502.5 billion won (about $409 million) investment of Korean taxpayer money, or 800 billion won-plus when counting spending to build the Naro spaceport.

Of course, the massive cost was to be justified by the critical knowledge and experience local engineers would gain from the rocket launches. However, it’s baffling to see government officials and KARI representatives handle the KSLV-I project more like a lavish public relations opportunity than a crucial science moment, shamelessly fueling the hype machine at one moment then scrambling to invent excuses the next.

In fact, the journalists covering the KSLV-I launches for the second consecutive year had to sit through more lame justifications than a disgruntled plastic surgery patient.

Minutes after communications with the KSLV-I were severed after its ill-fated lift-off, KARI President Lee Joo-jin held an emergency news briefing and claimed that the rocket’s mission to deliver a climate observation satellite may still prove to be successful. Neither KARI engineers nor Science Ministry officials admitted that the rocket had exploded until KBS television footage made it clear for all to see.

This forced Science Minster Ahn Byung-man to join Lee in the briefing room to announce that the rocket indeed blew up, and then quickly escape the scene as reporters began throwing questions.

``You are obligated to answer,’’ screamed one reporter, ``that wasn’t your money,’’ shouted another, as Ahn and Lee disappeared behind the doors of an elevator.

It will cost Korea 200 billion won to buy a new rocket from the Russians, and some experts wonder whether the money will be better spent if the country just skips on the third launch and goes directly for the KSLV-II, which is aimed to be an indigenous rocket.

But without an improved sense of accountability from Korean government officials and engineers, the specter of disappoint will continue to loom on the pad of Naro spaceport.

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