Explosion to ignite Korea-Russia blame game

Ahn Byung-man, left, minister of education, science and technology, talks about the explosion of the KSLV-I at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, Thursday evening. At right are Russian scientists and engineers returning to the lab in the space center after ground control lost contact with the rocket. / Korea Times

By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff reporter

GOHEUNG, South Jeolla Province ― A Korea Space Launch Vehicle I (KSLV-I) appeared to have exploded moments after take-off, delivering a crippling blow to the country's efforts to introduce itself as a regional space power.

But people can be assured that the real mess hasn't even begun.

The rocket is believed to have blown up 137 seconds after its 5:01 p.m. lift-off from the Naro Space Center (NSC), which was exactly the time when ground control lost contact as the vehicle reached an altitude of 70 kilometers.

With Korea's launch vehicle literally blowing up in its face, the country is expected to engage in an ugly finger-pointing battle with Russia's Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, which is providing the core technology for the space project.

There is a lot more at stake than just restoring some self-respect ― Korea's ability to deflect blame onto the Russians may determine whether there will be a third KSLV-I launch or not.

``It was the KSLV-I first stage that exploded and the responsibility falls on the Russians,'' Kim Jung-hyun, South Korea's vice minister of education, science and technology, told reporters on the sidelines of a news conference in the Naro spaceport's briefing room.

The part-Russian, part Korean KSLV-I is the result of a 502.5 billion won ($418 million) investment. The Khrunichev Center designed and developed the KSLV-I first-stage, which contained the rocket engine and liquid-fuel propulsion system. KARI produced the second-stage, which is designed to hold and release the satellite payload, also a product of Korean technology.

Thursday's doomed take-off was the second launch of a KSLV-I from the Naro spaceport. In a previous one in August last year, the rocket achieved the desired speed and altitude, but failed to deliver its satellite into orbit.

Koreans demand third launch

The Russians are under contract to provide at least two launches, and a possible third should their technology related to the KSLV-1 first-stage be found responsible for the failure of any of the first two attempts.

KARI was guilty for the bungled first launch, but the apparently explosion of the KSLV-1 first stage could be enough to rope the Russians in for a third attempt.

However, as obvious as things might seem, the process of failure analysis between the Koreans and Russians promises to be a laborious one.

To begin with, the Koreans will likely be limited by a disadvantage in information. The technology safeguard agreement (TSA) signed between Russia and South Korea bans any technology transfer regarding the KSLV-I first stage.

This means that they will command no rights to participate in the recovering of the rocket debris, believed to be drifting in waters near Jeju Island; not to mention the process of analyzing it.

And although the explosion of the first-stage seems an established fact, the shaky build-up to Thursday's launch might give the Russians just enough ground to claim that the Koreans may have been at least partially responsible for the ill-fated flight.

The launch was originally scheduled for 5 p.m. Wednesday, but was interrupted by a malfunction of the launch pad's fire prevention system, which buried the pad in white foam and forced controllers to call off the launch just three hours before liftoff.

Engineers at the NSC scrambled to clear the chemical retardants and spent the rest of Wednesday analyzing the cause of the problem and correcting it. The decision to proceed with the launch wasn't made until Thursday morning, when a flight committee of Korean and Russian engineers concluded it would be safe push ahead.

This wasn't the first time questions have arisen over whether the KSLV-I was ready to fly. The rocket's -1's installation on the launch pad was delayed for hours late Monday due to a technical glitch related to the mast, which holds the telemetry cables that connect the rocket with the launch support system.

KARI announced Tuesday that an unstable electrical connection forced the delay, which meant moving the original Wednesday launch date.

However, less than 30 minutes later KARI was sending text messages that the rocket was being raised on the pad, which had reporters questioning whether government officials, overzealous for results, had pressed engineers to be less cautious.

Tak Min-jae, an aerospace scientist at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) who worked as an adviser on the KSLV-I project, predicted that the Russians will make things ``very difficult'' for the Koreans in the debate over the rocket's failure.

``It's hard to sustain convincing arguments when access to information could be lopsided,'' he said.

``There is the possibility that the Russians could suggest that the rocket's exposure to the chemical fire retardants may have caused the failure. Such reasoning would be absurd, as considering that the rocket was designed to be fully sealed from the penetration of liquids, and rust wouldn't be likely over such a short span of time.''

Controversy over rocket engine revived

Sources close to the launch project told The Korea Times that first indications suggest a failure of the rocket's main, RD-151 rocket engine, developed by Russia's NPO Energomash, as its performance was seen to be reduced considerably as the vehicle began to veer off course.

The RD-151 is basically a derivative of the RD-191M engine that will be used for the Angara 1.1, the first of Russia's yet-to-be-flown next-generation rockets that is expected to make its maiden flight next year.

The Angara rocket family is intended to become the mainstay of the Russian fleet in the future, so basically, the 502.5 billion won KSLV-I project may have become an expensive guinea pig, a stage test before the Russians start flying the Angara themselves.

This had some observers raising suspicions that Russia used Korean money to experiment with technology for their own future projects, and had put the KSLV-I on the backburner.

Prior to the first launch, there were suspicions that the Khrunichev Center had been using an RD-191 engine for combustion tests scheduled for the Korean rocket, instead of the RD-151 that was to be actually used in the launch.

Now, with a flawed RD-151 engine mentioned as the most plausible cause for the explosion, the controversy over engines will likely be touched off again.

KAIST's Tak said that a possible malfunction of a turbo pump in the RD-151 may have caused the explosion by allowing too much fuel into the engine.