By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff reporter
The Korean space agency has completed the assembly of its Korea Space Launch Vehicle 1 (KSLV-1) rocket ahead of a second flight scheduled for next month.
The KSLV-1, also called "Naro-1," achieved the desired speed and height during its launch in August last year from the Naro Space Center in South Jeolla Province, but failed to deliver its payload satellite into orbit.
Engineers at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) and Russia's Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, which is providing the technology for the Korean space rocket, hope to avoid a similar failure on the June 9 retry.
KSLV-1 is a two-stage rocket, with Khrunichev developing and producing the first stage, or the lower-half which includes the rocket engine and liquid-fuel propulsion system.
The KARI-built second-stage is designed to hold and eject the satellite to its proper location. The mechanism is based on an "explosive bolt" technique, whereby a set of bolts attaching the fairings, or the pair of covers that protects the satellite during its ascent, with the rocket are ignited and blown apart..
Officials from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology confirmed Monday that the process of finishing the two halves of the rocket has been completed at the Naro spaceport. The Science and Technology Satellite No. 1 (STSAT-1), the rocket's payload, was stacked together with the second stage earlier this month.
KARI and Khrunichev engineers will put the assembled KSLV-1 through a variety of tests, including extensive examinations of the electronic systems, before rolling the rocket out of the assembly building to the launch pad ahead of the June countdown.
"Now that the assembly of the rocket has been completed, the focus will be on examining the electronic systems as well as the connection between the first and second stages. The rocket will have to be kept in top condition before the June 9 launch," said Kim Yeong-shik, an official from the Science Ministry's science and technology policy division.
Last year the first KSLV-1 failed to deliver its satellite into orbit after one of the fairings didn't separate properly, and the satellite is believed to have burned up in the atmosphere before it crashed back to Earth.
An independent panel, led by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) aerospace expert Lee In, was unable to produce a conclusive explanation in reporting the results of their investigation in February, although narrowing the possibilities to either electrical problems or a mechanical flaw.
For the second launch, KARI officials made adjustments to reduce the possibility of a discharge, using cables with better resistance and molding the wires that connect the trigger and fairing separation system.
The new design also guards against the possibility of flaws in the fairing separation systems. Should a malfunction occur on one side of the fairings, the opposite side will be programmed to ignite the muted explosive bolts, KARI officials said.
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