Kwak Yeon-soo is a digital editor at The Korea Times creating, editing and curating digital content for the newspaper’s website, mobile app and social media. She previously covered a diverse array of cultural, political and business topics.
Korea to launch Chollian-2B satellite in February
The Chollian-2B satellite is placed in a non-vibration shipping container in Daejeon. / Courtesy of KARI
By Kwak Yeon-soo
By Kwak Yeon-soo
Korea will launch its Chollian-2B satellite at the Guiana Space Center on Feb. 19, the Ministry of Science and ICT said Sunday. The satellite will be carried on top of the Ariane-5 space vehicle.
The Chollian-2B satellite is a new geostationary earth orbit satellite designed to track fine dust and observe climate change in East Asia.
The ministry said it would place the satellite in a non-vibration shipping container at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), and then fly it to the Guiana Space Center in South America on a cargo plane.
“Korean engineers will carefully inspect the satellite to make certain all systems are in working order and are not damaged during the shipment,” a science ministry official said.
According to KARI, the Geostationary Environmental Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS) can track 20 types of air pollutants including fine dust, carbon dioxide and the ozone in real time while the Geostationary Ocean Color Imager-2 (GOCI-2) can track contaminants in the ocean.
“The sensors and equipment on the satellite will enable us to acquire remarkable information that can further enhance space-related research and cooperation with other countries,” the official said.
The government allocated 386.7 billion won ($331.2 million) to the Chollian-2B project, which began in 2011. The ministry expects the satellite's life cycle to be 10 years.