Korea Blames Russia for Rocket Launch Delays
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Throughout the huge build-up to the South Korea's very first space launch, government officials have been doing their best to keep expectations modest. In fact, experts at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology have been telling anyone that asks that the chances of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle 1 (KSLV-1) successfully reaching orbit are less than 50 percent.
However, with the repeated delays in the rocket launch, the fear of failure seems to be becoming real, as Korean authorities are reminded that they have little control over the fate of their space project, whenever it gets off the ground.
The KSLV-1 will be the first spacecraft to be launched from the Naro Space Center, the country's brand new spaceport at the southwestern tip of the Korean Peninsula.
The launch was originally scheduled for October in 2006, but was postponed five times before the ministry settled on Aug. 11 last week.
Russia's Khrunichev State Space Science and Production Center, which is providing the technology for the project, forced a sixth postponement Tuesday, telling local authorities that it needs further time to address some ``technical issues'' detected during its recent testing of the rocket's liquid-fuel propulsion system.
Science ministry officials have yet to be told the exact details of the problems their Russian counterparts are talking about. All they have is a single piece of paper that was pushed out of a fax machine late Monday at an office of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), the country's space agency.
The ministry didn't learn about the fax sent by the Russians until the following morning, when KARI officials came to work. Perhaps, a phone or e-mail confirmation was too much to ask for merely a 502.5 billion won (about $412 billion) multinational space project.
``We have been informed that abnormal data was discovered in the testing results of the first-stage of the rocket, and that the Khrunichev Center will need more time to analyze that data,'' said a ministry official.
``We have yet to learn how this is related to the functionality of the rocket engine. We will reschedule the launch after we have been fully informed of the technical issues.''
Ministry officials are intent on pulling off the launch as quickly as possible to avoid the typhoon-prone months of September and October. The country has set its ``launch window'' from Aug. 11 through Aug. 18 to account for variables such as weather conditions, and it remains to be seen whether the delay will be a matter of days or weeks.
The problems discovered in the rocket engine, whatever they are, hardly inspires confidence in the KSLV-1's fate. This is the second time in less than a month that the Khrunichev Center has asked for more time to sort things out.
The launch was moved from July 30 to Aug. 11 after the Russians reported software problems on their testing equipment for the rocket engine. They completed their tests on July 30, about a week behind the previous schedule, and the Koreans set Aug. 11 as the new launch date shortly afterward.
Now with Aug. 11 not possible, critics are wondering whether the ministry was trying too hard to push things ahead without properly monitoring the readiness of the machinery.
Lee Ju-jin, the head of KARI, had said that it would take two or three days to analyze the test results and at least another 10 days to attach the first-stage of the rocket, which contains the rocket engine, to the upper stage that carries a satellite.
Considering that the Russians needed to wait until July 30 to test fire the rocket engine, it could be argued that an Aug. 11 launch represented a severely tight schedule.
A ministry official defended the decision, saying that KARI engineers have already started to assemble the rocket before the Khrunichev Center completed the rocket engine tests. It is ``common practice'' that the test process and assembly are carried out simultaneously, the official said.
It wouldn't matter much what the Koreans are doing or not doing in their spacecraft hanger, when they are at mercy of the next paper to be spit out from their fax machine.
Clearly, ``joint development'' is a generous way to describe the KSLV-1 project, when the Russians have made it clear there will be no technology transfer, over worries that the know-how of building a rocket engine could possibly be applied to missile weaponry.
The Khrunichev Center developed the 25.8-meter long lower assembly that contains the propulsion system. KARI designed the solid-fuel upper portion of the rocket, which will seat the satellite.
Countries with advanced space technologies, such as Russia, the United States, Japan and other European states, refrain from sharing their rocket technology with other countries, considering that rocket engines are similar to those used for intercontinental ballistic missiles.