Aimingfor the Stars
By Shim Hyun-chul
Staff Reporter
The Year of the Ox has just trotted out of the gate, and newspapers are wiping the dust off their crystal balls to churn out annual forecasts to predict the future for the next 12 months.
Korean scientists and government authorities have a collective prayer that 2009 will be remembered as the year when the country successfully launched its first rocket from its brand new space center.
All eyes will be upon the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, next summer when local engineers and their Russian partners attempt to send the Korea Space Launch Vehicle- 1 (KSLV-1) into orbit.
The upper part of the KSLV- 1, which is designed to hold a satellite, was developed by scientists at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), while the lower assembly of the rocket, which contains the liquid-fuel propulsion system, was developed by Russia’s Khrunichev State Space Science and Production Center.
The KSLV-1 is an important step in Korea’s ambitious space program that plans to put a satellite into lunar orbit by 2020. The country is also seeking to take an active part in the International Lunar Network (ILN) project, a multinational project aiming to gradually place six to eight fixed or mobile science stations on the lunar surface.
Although the KSLV-1 launch is garnering much attention, experts are cautious about stoking the hype, with a highranking government official admitting that the odds for success on the first try is less than 30 percent. No wonder President Lee Myung-bak has yet to decide whether to attend the launch or not.
A successful launch will make Korea the ninth country to lift a spacecraft from its own soil.