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Staff Reporter
South Korea has finished building the upper portion of its first space rocket, which will carry a satellite into orbit in December.
The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) said Thursday that it has built the top section of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1) with its own workforce. Final testing was now underway, the space agency said.
The project is one of the country's moves into commercial exploitation of space, along with the flight of the first Korean astronaut set for April 8. Lee So-youn is to fly to the International Space Station via a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
``The successful designing, production and testing of the rocket's core parts has enabled Korea to obtain core technology for space vehicles,'' KARI said in a press release. ``This will be used in developing Korea's own rockets in the future.''
The KSLV-1 is being built with technological support from Russia, which has been South Korea's closest ally in its space ventures. It had also helped North Korea build its Daepodong missiles.
The 33-meter-long, 140-ton KSLV-1 will be capable of launching a satellite weighing 100 kilograms into low earth orbit.
It is comprised of two parts. The long, lower assembly contains the liquid-fuelled propulsion system. It is being built in Russia and is to be delivered to the launch pad at the new Naro Space Center on the southwestern island Oinarudo in October.
The smaller, upper part houses the satellite. It uses a second-stage, solid-fuel booster to deploy the satellite into a preset orbit of 300 kilometers. It measures 2.9 meters in diameter and 7.75 meters in length.
South Korea is a late starter in the space exploration field. It has sent around a dozen communication and research satellites into earth orbit in the past decade, but they were all carried on foreign-launched rockets.
So far, the United States, Russia, Japan, China, France, India and Israel have built their own satellites and rockets and sent them into space.
As a late starter, the Korean government plans to send an unmanned probe to orbit the moon in 2020 and to land another on its surface in 2025.
indizio@koreatimes.co.kr
