Korean Rocket Fate Decided in Nine Minutes
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
In a two-hour window on Wednesday afternoon, the Korea Space Launch Vehicle 1 (KSLV-1) will either make history or become a footnote. Its fate will be determined in the first 540 seconds.
On Monday, the rocket was transported to the launch pad of the Naro Space Center, the country's brand new space port in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, and was raised to the upright position on the pad by an erector.
Should weather conditions permit, the two-stage rocket will blast off some time between 4:40 p.m. to 6:20 p.m. The time was set to maximize the sun exposure of the Science Technology Satellite No. 2 (STSAT-2), the 100-kilogram satellite powered by solar energy that the KSLV-1 is supposed to send into orbit.
The satellite, jointly developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), will be installed with a microwave radiometer, a Lyman-alpha imaging solar telescope (LIST) and a satellite laser ranging (SLR) device.
Separating from the KSLV-1 approximately nine minutes from the launch, when it will be 306 kilometers above the territory of the Philippines, the satellite will draw power while circling the Earth, passing positions above Australia, the South Pole, Peru and the North Pole.
Fully charged, the satellite ― which is expected to have a space life of about two years ― will then spread its solar panels and conduct its mission of measuring the Earth's radiant energy and observing satellite orbits.
Of course, the satellite is the least of the worries of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), the country's space agency, and Russia's Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, which is providing the technology for the KSLV-1.
Engineers at the Naro Space Center can only hope that the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA)'s predictions for clear skies Wednesday will be on the money. Heavy rain or winds blowing faster than 21 meters per second will be enough to call off the launch, as they would affect the rocket's stability after launching. Stronger winds, moving faster than 100 meters per second, could force the rocket to veer off its planned course.
KARI officials also said that lightning within a 20-kilometer radius of the launch area or in the trajectory of the rocket's flight path would force a rescheduling of the launch.
``The KSLV-1 is more than an event. Whether or not the first try results in a success, consistent support and effort will be key in building up our space program,'' said KARI President Lee Ju-jin.
``Like the United States, Japan failed on its first try. Now the country is launching moon orbiters.''
Final Countdown
Should KARI officials clear the KSLV-1 for launch, Naro engineers will start to fill the rocket's first stage, which contains the propulsion system, with kerosene and liquid oxygen, used as the propellants, two hours prior to launch time.
After a final check on the machinery of the rocket and launch pad, as well as the weather conditions, Naro engineers will initiate the automatic countdown 15 minutes before liftoff on a call from Cho Gwang-rae, the KARI senior researcher who is in charge of the project. The launch will be guided by the launch control and observation center that is about 2 kilometers away from the launch pad.
After launch, the rocket will ascend vertically for 25 seconds, enough time to reach 900 meters above ground, then rotate 10 degrees east and head in the direction of Okinawa. The rocket will be 290 kilometers above ground when it passes the Japanese island chain, thus avoiding Japan's aerial domain.
Approximately 215 seconds after the launch, the KSLV-1's nose fairing, which is used to cover the STSAT-2 satellite, will be moved from the second stage of the rocket.
The liquid fuel of the lower assembly will be consumed after 232 seconds. The lower assembly will then be separated from the upper part of the rocket and fall to sea, while a ``kick motor'' in the upper engine will be lighted to position the satellite in the planned direction.
The solid fuel of the upper engine will be exhausted after 540 seconds (9 minutes) and separate from the satellite, which will be about 306 kilometers above ground. The satellite will then be pushed into the low earth orbit.
Naro officials can call the launch as a success if the satellite sends a signal back to the spaceport 13 hours after the launch.
Since starting construction in December of 2000, the country has spent more than 312.4 billion won (about $259 million) to complete the Naro Space Center, which makes Korea the 13th nation in the world to have its own spaceport.
The 5.11 million-square-meter space center is built around a launch complex that includes the launch pad and erector, a launch control center, a ground-based observation center, a tracking radar, an electro optical tracking system and other high-tech equipment.
Of the impressive array of facilities and machinery at the Naro, the flight termination system (FTS) facility is the one piece of state-of-the-art equipment that KARI officials are reluctant to talk about.
Despite the enormous hype surrounding the launch, KARI officials admit that the chance of failure ``exceeds 70 percent.''
Of the 4,378 rockets launched from Earth between 1959 to 1999, nearly 92 percent of them turned out successfully, according to figures provided by KARI. However, the numbers are deceiving, as the old Soviet Union, France and Israel remain as the only countries to have successfully sent a spacecraft into orbit on their maiden flights.