South Korea’s self-developed rocket “World” is scheduled to launch this afternoon – Teller Report

IT House News on May 25th, South Korea’s self-developed launch vehicle “World” was originally scheduled to launch yesterday afternoon, but due to the command transmission between the launch control computer and the programmable logic controller (PLC) on the helium tank on the launch pad Not smooth, the launch was stopped.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the “World” will be launched at 6:24 pm on May 25 for the third time.

The Korean Ministry of Science, Technology, Information and Communications and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute held a launch management committee meeting that morning to hear reports on the inspection and repair results of the launch automatic control system and the launch pad equipment control system, and finalize the launch time.

Unlike previous test launches carrying simulated satellites, this launch will put eight satellites developed by private companies for scientific research purposes into orbit, one of which is the next-generation small satellite NEXTSat 2 developed by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology.

In addition, it also includes a 4 kg Earth Observation Technology Demonstration CubeSat JLC-101-v1-2, a 10 kg Cosmic Radiation Monitoring CubeSat Lumir-T1, a 6 kg Earth Observation and Weather Monitoring CubeSat KSAT3U. Also on board is SNIPE, a constellation of four 6U CubeSats that can be used to identify temporal and spatial variations in small-scale plasma structures in the ionosphere and magnetosphere.

Referring to IT House’s previous report, Korea’s second space launch vehicle (KSLV-II) failed to put a virtual satellite into orbit in its first launch on October 21, 2021, but it failed to put a virtual satellite into orbit on the second launch on June 21, 2022. In this test launch, a virtual satellite and a performance verification satellite were successfully sent into a low orbit 700 kilometers from the earth, making South Korea the seventh country in the world to use a domestically developed space rocket to launch a satellite weighing more than 1 ton .

Lee Sang-ryool, head of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, said the significance of the third launch is that it is the first challenge to send an actual satellite into space.

“For the first and second launches of the Nuri rocket, we focused on developing our own launch vehicle. Based on this success, the third launch will be an enhancement project to improve reliability and stabilize the launch vehicle.”

“The third launch is significant because it will be our first launch with our own customer. We have been using launch vehicles from other countries, but we will eventually launch a Korean customer’s satellite on a Korean-made launch vehicle. This is A very important moment, and I hope it will be a leap forward for the Korean space industry.”

Meanwhile, South Korea is developing its next-generation launch vehicle, the KSLV-3, which is expected to debut in 2030. KSLV-3 will be able to deliver payloads of up to 10 tons to low Earth orbit; 7 tons to sun-synchronous orbit; 3.7 tons to geostationary transfer orbit; and 1.8 tons to lunar transfer orbit. It is reported that South Korea plans to launch a self-developed robotic lunar lander through KSLV-3 by 2032.