Space rocket to be launched at 5:01 p.m. today

The government is attempting again to launch the space rocket at 5:01 p.m. today, one day after the malfunction of the emergency fire extinguisher caused the halt of the countdown.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said the problems have been cleared of completely.

A ministry official said that the engineers checked the cause of the abnormal release of extinguisher fluids but it did not affect the operational safety of the locally-made Naro-1 rocket.

However, he said that because there will be a buildup of clouds in the area around the Naro Space Center, it will closely monitor the weather before the launch.

The country had originally planned to send up the Naro-1, also called the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1), at 5:00 p.m. Wednesday.