South Korea's first fully indigenous rocket now on launch pad, ready for tests
- Reference: 1622633464
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/06/02/koreas_fully_indigenous_rocket_now/
- Source link:
The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) hopes to launch the craft, known as "Nuri" or KSLV-II, in October 2021 with a mock payload.
By May 2022 KARI wants to send up a 200kg satellite, a payload that should not tax Nuri as it is rated to carry 2,600kg into low-earth orbit.
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KARI had hoped to set in motion Nuri in February 2021, but the program was delayed due to changes in its first stage’s assembly process and part delays. Final combustion tests of the rocket's first-stage engines were conducted in March.
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The country started developing the rocket in 2010 and has been mostly silent about the two trillion won ($1.8bn, £1.27bn) project’s progress.
The Ministry of Science and ICT [4]said Nuri currently sits on its launch pad at Naro Space Center in Goheung waiting for tests to be carried out. The tests will set the vehicle upright (as was done Tuesday), connect it to the launch pad with cords that carry fuel, power and signals.
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Nuri’s actual flight model is still under construction, as are two of its three stages. The two yet-to-be-assembled stages use 75-ton liquid engines – four clustered in the first stage and one on the second stage. The other stage, which has already been built, has a seven-ton liquid engine.
South Korea flew a rocket in 2013, when Naro, aka KSLV-1, placed a satellite into low-Earth orbit. However, its first stage was built in Russia.
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The nation's slow progress in space is in part attributable to a 1979 agreement between the US and South Korea that limited the latter country to developing and test ballistic missiles with range of just 180km. The restrictions were revised in July of 2020 as limits on the use of solid fuel in space launch vehicles were [10]completely removed and South Korea became free to make use of solid rocket motors without restrictions, thereby enabling their extremely limited (to date) space program. South Korea has also signed the Artemis Accords, an international agreement on space research collaboration.
South Korea has big ambitions in space, with plans in place to launch a lunar orbiter in 2022. ®
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[10] http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20200728000731
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Re: From next to nothing to lunar orbiter in 2 years
Not really a fair comment. The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programmes basically had to develop the technology required to get a man to the moon and safely back from scratch. They literally had to start with a blank sheet of paper and work it out from first principles, one step at a time, using a trial and error methodology. Nowadays, if you set out to build a launcher, you have 50+ years of previous experience, backed up by University courses and degrees, that will feed you the information you need. I'm not saying that its any easier from an engineering perspective, but all of the baseline science that underpins this sort of thing is now old hat.
Saying that, I would also like to wish them good luck and far (solar) sailing.
Re: From next to nothing to lunar orbiter in 2 years
NASA imported the Army Ballistic Missile Agency team for Mercury. It was led by Wernher von Braun, who already had many years of rocket experience. The first Mercury-Redstone flights used modified Redstone rockets previously developed by von Braun. I think "blank sheet of paper" is over-stating things a bit.
Re: From next to nothing to lunar orbiter in 2 years
"Blank sheet of paper" is not over stating it at all.
Rockets are rockets, but getting a living human into space and back, still living, was complete unknown territory. As was building mechanisms that worked in zero-g and vacuum. Astrodynamics was known, but actual techniques to track stuff far away in space, and methods of rendezvous and docking were non-existent.
Doctors argued over if it was even possible to swallow in space. Would they choke on their own saliva in zero-g? That's the sort of level of "unknown" it was.
Dealing with vacuum is it's own set of new challenges. Does your lube work, or does it boil uselessly away or harden into a lump? Does your paint outgas and leave a film all over your optics and instruments? That's just the start of it.
Edit: there was also a terror that the Moon was covered in a soft dust that would instantly swallow spacecraft, never to be seen again. The fact it was possible to softland a probe at all was a milestone.
Re: From next to nothing to lunar orbiter in 2 years
Overstating only a little, von Braun hadn't previously designed anything with 'crew survives the trip' as the primary goal, this placed a lot of new limitations on any rocket design.
Re: From next to nothing to lunar orbiter in 2 years
Even his later rockets didn't really survive the trip, only a tiny crew module came back.
It's like a jet fighter where the pilot successfully ejects at the end of each flight rather than landing.
Took surprisingly long for a rocket to land properly - like Thunderbirds intended
Duplication of effort
I thought there were plenty of North Korean missiles that wanted to defect?
...defect
If they fly over the border there will be something of a diplomatic incident.
icon: obvs --->
Re: ...defect
Yeah, if the missiles were defective they just might fly off course.
Erm why?
The US 'ban' on Korea building missiles?
S. Korea was on the US side in the MASH war, so it isn't a defeated Germany can't have fighter planes deal.
It's not like the US didn't want to upset relations with N. Korea
Although S. Korea was a military dictatorship until recently (1980s?) it was a very pro-America military dictatorship and hardly like to be a geo-political threat to the USA
From next to nothing to lunar orbiter in 2 years
That's shorter than the Apollo program.
Good luck.