2012-11-27 11:14
Korea's space rocket put on launch pad for liftoff
Korea on Tuesday began final preparations for the scheduled launch of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1) later in the week, setting up the rocket on a launch pad at the Naro Space Center on the south coast.
The space rocket, also known as Naro-1, is set to be fired off Thursday. "The transportation of the Naro-1 to its launch pad was completed at 9:31 a.m. today," the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) said in a released statement. KARI is the main developer of Naro's upper second-stage rocket. The first-stage rocket of the two-stage Naro-1 was built by Russia's Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center. The space rocket will soon be connected to the launch pad's cable mast, which is a pillar-like structure that houses all electric wires and gas pumps connected to the rocket, and fastened to the erector, which helps set the rocket into an upright position, according to KARI. Thursday's launch will be South Korea's third attempt to send a space rocket into space from its own soil. Its first two attempts in 2009 and 2010 ended in failures. (Yonhap) |
