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There is a new member in the world space race.
At 4pm local time on June 21st, South Korea’s self-developed launch vehicle "World" was launched from the Luo Lao Space Center in Gaoxing County, Jeollanam-do, and successfully separated from the satellite in the 700km synchronous orbit, successfully sending the satellite into the scheduled orbit.
This is the first time that a Korean-made rocket has completed a satellite launch mission, which also makes South Korea the seventh country in the world to put a satellite weighing more than 1 ton into orbit with a Chinese-made rocket, which is just as famous as Russia, the United States, France, China, Japan and India, and demonstrates its ability to launch spy satellites and build long-range missiles by itself.
The launch of the "World" also encountered various challenges. It was originally scheduled to be launched on June 15th, but it was forced to be postponed for one day due to windy weather. Then, due to abnormal data, the launch plan originally scheduled for June 16th was postponed again.
"World" is the first launch vehicle independently developed by South Korea. A total of 250 researchers participated in the research and development process, aiming at sending a 1.5-ton practical satellite into low earth orbit (600-800 km).
The whole project took about 12 years, with a total investment of nearly 2 trillion won (about 1.68 billion US dollars).
Nearly 30 years after South Korea launched its first rocket for scientific observation in June 1993, South Korean President Yin Xiyue celebrated: "Now the road to the universe has been opened from the land of South Korea, which is the product of difficult challenges in the past 30 years."
Former President Moon Jae in also wrote a post on Facebook praising KARI for "accomplishing great things" and said that the next goal is the moon.
South Korea officially joined the ranks of countries that have developed their own spontaneous rockets.
For decades, South Korea has always been obsessed with self-developed rockets.
They not only hope to be able to launch communications and other satellites in orbit by launching self-developed rockets, thus ranking among the elite national clubs in space, but also hope to better detect potential threats from other countries through satellite identification.
In 2013, after many delays and failures, South Korea put a satellite into orbit for the first time, mainly for research and development.
However, the two-stage rocket "Ronald" used for this mission was jointly built with Russia. This time, it cost nearly 1.9 trillion won (US$ 1.5 billion) to develop "World", which is called -II(Korea Space Launch Vehicle-II, and it is completely self-developed.
In October last year, in the first test shot of "World", the rocket sent a 1.5-ton simulated satellite into space 434 miles from the Earth. However, due to problems with the oxidizer tank, the satellite was burned earlier than planned and failed to stay in the scheduled orbit.
In this test launch, "World" not only carried a 1.3-ton simulation satellite, but also carried a 357-pound performance verification satellite. This is undoubtedly a major technological breakthrough for South Korea.
Ahn Sang-il, a senior researcher at Korea Aerospace Research Institute, said that this performance verification satellite will help scientists prepare to launch more satellites in the future, test antennas, generators and other satellite components, and transmit their trajectory data to Earth.
Attached to the performance verification satellite are four mini research satellites CubeSats, which were built by Korean University. These satellites weighing between 7 and 21 pounds will be released into orbit one by one from June 29th.
South Korea’s Ministry of Science and Technology said that only nine countries in the world have the ability to launch rockets by themselves, and only six of them can launch more than 1 metric ton of practical satellites; South Korea has mastered the relevant development and launch pad construction technology, becoming the seventh country with the ability to develop medium and large liquid rocket engines.
New research and development plans and launch plans are on the agenda.
The success of this launch plan has also made South Korea’s rocket launch plan more convincing.
It is understood that South Korea plans to conduct four test launches of the "World" system before 2027, and the latest one is tentatively scheduled for early next year. At the same time, South Korea is still developing a new rocket, which will be more than twice as powerful as the "World".
Not only that, South Korea also hopes to develop and use self-developed rockets to send unmanned spacecraft to the moon in the 1930s.
South Korea hopes to make full use of its rocket technology to build satellite-based navigation and next-generation communication networks. For example, it occupies a place in the world satellite launch market. At present, most rocket launches in the world are carried out by the United States, Russian, French, China, Japanese and Indian.
So far, South Korea has been relying on other countries to transport its satellites.
In July last year, South Korea used Musk SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket to put its first military communication satellite into orbit. According to the plan, they will launch a lunar orbiter this fall, also using Falcon 9 rocket.
The launch of the self-developed rocket is also a good thing for South Korea’s military. Without its own military satellite, South Korea has been using American satellites to guard against neighboring countries. Nowadays, self-developed rockets also mean that South Korea can put its own "clairvoyance" and "clairvoyance" in space.
South Korea and the dream of self-developed rockets
South Korea’s economic and technological strength, looking at the world, is still relatively powerful.
In 2020, South Korea’s GDP reached 1.6 trillion US dollars, higher than that of Russia. In terms of science and technology, the most powerful thing in South Korea is the semiconductor manufacturing industry. At present, in addition to TSMC, the other company in the world that can realize the mass production of CPU 5nm process is Samsung.
However, CPU and self-developed rocket are still two different things.
In the research and development of rockets, launch vehicles need to send satellites, manned spacecraft, interplanetary detectors and other spacecraft into space, generally with 2 ~ 4 levels. One of the most important components is the rocket engine. In the launching mission of the two-stage carrier rocket "Ronald", the first stage was made in Russia and the second stage was made in South Korea.
After the failure of the "World" mission last year, South Korea’s Minister of Science, Technology, Information and Communication, Lin Huishu, said that the main problem was the third-stage engine, which failed to reach the target of burning for 521 seconds, and stopped working early at 475 seconds, resulting in insufficient speed and failure to send the satellite into the established orbit. At present, it is speculated that it is not the cause of fuel shortage or rocket engine failure. It may be that there is a problem with the pressure system or parts fail to meet the expected performance, and it may also be that the valve is mistakenly started.
However, the success of the first and second stage separation, fairing throwing and three-stage engine ignition is the expected result, which shows that South Korea’s space technology has reached a certain level. The first-stage rocket is composed of four 75-ton thrust liquid engines, which can generate 300-ton thrust. It is reported that this technology is adopted for the first time by Korean domestic launch vehicles, and it is also one of the biggest difficulties in this research and development project.
Huang Zhicheng, an aerospace expert from China, said in an interview that the carrying capacity of "World" has surpassed that of the Long March-1 carrier rocket that launched China’s first artificial satellite Dongfanghong-1, but its overall performance is still inferior to that of the Long March-2 carrier rocket developed by China in the 1970s.
Failure is the past, and now the successful launch of the self-developed rocket is undoubtedly a tonic. It is estimated that from 2023 to 31, the South Korean government will invest 1 trillion 933 billion won (about 1.62 billion US dollars) in projects including launching large satellites in low orbit and independently launching lunar landing ships.
With South Korea officially joining the ranks of countries that have developed their own spontaneous rockets, the future space competition will become more and more fierce, and such a future is still worth looking forward to.
Related reports:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/world/asia/south-korea-rocket-launch-nuri.html?
https://www.engadget.com/south-korea-nuri-rocket-launch-satellite-161225369.html
https://cacnews.ca/128809.html
https://military.china.com/news/13004177/20211022/40192805_all.html#page_2
Original title: "twice postponed, South Korea launched its own research rocket and became the seventh satellite launcher in the world! Moon Jae in: The next goal is the moon.
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