Korea faces bumpy road to be space power

The Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1), also known as Naro, takes off from the launch pad at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, Wednesday. Following the successful launch, government officials announced plans to advance the launch schedule of its next rocket, the KSLV-2. / Yonhap

Nation still lacks key technology to launch rocket independently

By Cho Mu-hyun

South Korea faces a bumpy road ahead to be a space power despite the successful launch of a locally assembled rocket that gave legitimate reasons for the parties involved to celebrate.

No longer feeling the pressure of the two previous failures, government officials are speaking of bringing forward the launch of the planned Korea Space Launch Vehicle-2 (KSLV-2), a bigger and more powerful successor to KSLV-1, also known as Naro.

The “self-developed” KSLV-2 is tentatively scheduled for 2021 but the state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) is promoting a date three years sooner.

President-elect Park Geun-hye has expressed support for the advanced date, praising the success of Naro as evidence of a positive outlook.

But concerns are rising due to an unanswered fundamental question: Does Korea really have what it takes to do this?

Despite foreign media’s understandable comparison of the rocket launches of South and North Korea, putting them shoulder-to-shoulder is strictly speaking incorrect, at least in terms of technological advancement.

It is not possible to know for the foreseeable future of whether North Korea’s three-stage Eunha-3 released its payload satellite successfully but no one denies that its locally assembled first-stage thrust engines were powerful enough to send the rocket to outer space.

Naro, though similar in length with at 33 meters to Eunha’s 37, was a two-stage rocket with the crucial first stage built not by local engineers but nearly completely by Russian partners. It was less sophisticated, with literally only the tip made using domestic technology.

Park Tae-hak, who has been heading the KSLV-2 project since 2010 at KARI, said that South Korea will continue “close cooperation” with Russia throughout the coming years. “We plan to apply what we learned from Naro for KSLV-2,” he said at a recent media briefing. He declined to disclose specific on the workload division, citing a confidential agreement between the two countries.

The institute has been calling KSLV-2, a “self-developed rocket” but has also said that around 80 percent will be made from local technology.

A comparison can be made with consumer products: Apple’s iPhone uses parts from Asian suppliers and is assembled there. But the most important technology and circuit designs and blueprints are owned by the American firm. For South Korea’s rockets, Russian engineers still control the crucial assets.

Throughout the 10 years of the Naro project, local engineers had no access whatsoever to the 170-ton thrust engine for the first stage. Even during the investigations over the reason behind the failure of the second attempt in 2010, in which Naro exploded 137 seconds after takeoff, access to it was denied.

“We have had limited access toward the first stage. The second-stage engine has a mere 7 tons of thrust, and more importantly, uses less-advanced solid fuel over kerosene.

Other major space powers, such as the United States, China and Japan, use liquid-fuel to power rockets.

Korea also has no viable partners besides Russia to work with at this point. Other global giants rarely sell their rocket technology, even for the right price, for the obvious reasons of its military use.

“We are just beginning to do what they started around 30 to 40 years ago,” said KARI President Kim Seuong-jo. “Our technology is still around 20 to 30 years behind them.”

According to KARI, Russia is also demanding more money for further cooperation. It is now asking for $50 million, while for the satellite launches last year and in 2006, they asked for $25 million and $12 million respectively.

KARI plans to develop a 75-ton thrust engine by 2016, using the skills to build a 30-ton thrust engine it claims to have acquired from Russia. However, unlike the 7-ton thrust engine it has, the institute has not even began ground tests for prototypes, with facilities expected to be completed around 2015 at the earliest.

“The development of a liquid fuel engine should have been done on the sidelines of the Naro project,” said Yoon Woong-sup, a professor of mechanical engineering at Yonsei University. “Advancing the launch date doesn’t mean you can cut out necessary procedures.”

According to local experts, an independent development of a thrust engine will take at least for five to seven years, making it tight for the KSLV-2 to be launched in 2018. Since the next rocket will be three-staged, KARI also has to almost triple the number of required tests compared to Naro.

The institute tested the 7-ton thrust engine by itself and has no track record of testing three separate liquid-fueled engines that KARI estimates that each stage would need over 200 trials.

Despite government officials stating their willingness to allocate more funds for the rocket project, it remains to be seen whether they will honor their word and if the amount will be sufficient.

KARI officials claim that the current 1.5 trillion won set aside for KSLV-2 is not enough to move the launch plans forward for a, while having also requested additional manpower.

The rocket project is unlikely to be a priority for the next administration despite Park’s positive comments. Household debt, the global recession and creating jobs are likely to be at the top of the agenda, rather than a space program with no short-term benefit.

“We can only know for sure after the next administration comes in to power,” said one KARI official. “But we hope that the recent Naro success made an impression that will result in more practical support.”

The current government’s ultimate goal is to send a probe to the moon following the KSLV-2. KARI’s Park Tae-hak said he believes lunar exploration is “not a stunt” but will have a practical impact due to natural resources there but the road ahead appears extremely long.