Rocket fatigue takes hold

The KSLV-1 rocket is removed from the launch pad at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, last Friday, after a helium leak delayed what would have been a third launch since 2009. / Yonhap

By Kim Tong-hyung

Korea’s near-decade wait to join the space club was extended at least another month after a helium leak derailed the launch of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle 1 (KSLV-1) just hours before the scheduled takeoff last Friday. The collective sigh heard around the nation was a mixture of anxiety and moans of ``here we go again.’’

The country has spent the GDP of a Caribbean nation so far on its oft-troubled space launch program that began in 2003. And at some point the efforts became less of a science project th

an an expensive song and dance for blowhard bureaucrats.

The next launch, which can’t come earlier than mid-November and could easily be pushed to 2013, would represent the rocket’s third attempt to deliver a satellite into the lower orbit.

The KSLV-1 reached the desired height and speed on its first launch in 2009, only to find its payload jammed at the point of release. The second launch in the summer of 2010 failed to provide even moments of drama as it exploded just seconds after takeoff.

Government officials and engineers at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) are praying that the third time is the charm. While rockets are a rare business where success rates in the middling double digits are acceptable, three-and-out is not an option when national pride is at stake.

The desperation reached new levels when KARI decided to remove the self-destruct system of the upper-part of the two-stage KSLV-1, which had been designed to be triggered should it veer off course, as the mechanism has been blamed for the failure of the second launch.

KARI engineers claim there wouldn’t be any safety problems as the upper-stage doesn’t separate from the rocket’s first part, which continues the main engine and liquid-fueled propulsion system, until its more than 190 kilometers above the ground. Nonetheless, it’s hard to resist the jokes about a doctor removing the liver to prevent the possibility of liver cancer.

Korea has so far spent more than 800 billion won over the past 10 years to develop KSLV-1, which is based on core technologies provided by Russia’s Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center that KARI remains walled off from. And that doesn’t include the 2 trillion won spent to build the Naro Space Center on a small island off Goheung, South Jeolla Province.

It remains to be seen whether the country will ever be able to justify the massive splurge of taxpayer money. A technology safeguards agreement (TSA) signed between Russia and Korea bans any type of technology transfer over the KSLV-1 project, so it’s unclear how much the experience will help KARI engineers design their own rockets in the future. Still, that doesn’t keep them from speechifying about the intangible benefits of ``seeing things up close.’’

What’s clear, however, is that Korea doesn’t have a future in the commercial space launch industry where regional neighbors Russia, China and India are already established.

The tiny Naro Center, a several-hour drive away from Yeosu Airport, is nobody’s idea of a real spaceport and it’s unlikely the country will manage to build a new one. If Korea ever carves out a meaningful niche in the aerospace sector, it will be in designing low-orbit satellites or unmanned vehicles, but never in rockets.

There are reasons countries like Britain and Germany, light years ahead of Korea in space technology, don’t launch their own rockets anymore: the ability is obviously there, but the economic logic is not. It’s all but certain the Naro Center will be left deserted until KARI finishes the KSLV-2, which it says will be ``80 percent Korean made,’’ and nobody knows how long that’s supposed to take.

The Herculean efforts Korea has invested in the KSLV-1 project looks to be a zealous attempt at adding a new chapter to its industrialization myth, not entirely different from the way old military governments used to glorify roads and airports. But unlike the Gyeongbu Express Way, it’s hard to tell where we’re going with the KSLV-1.