South Korea successfully launches home-grown Nuri space rocket after failed attempt last year
South Korea's domestically built Nuri rocket successfully placed a payload into orbit on Tuesday, boosting its efforts to catch up with advanced countries in space development after a first test failed last year.
The three-stage Nuri rocket, emblazoned with a national flag, lifted off from the Naro Space Centre on a small island off the country's southern coast at 4pm (local time).
After flying 14 minutes to reach an altitude of 700 kilometres, it put a "performance verification" satellite into orbit, the science ministry said.
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"The launch of the Korea-developed space vehicle Nuri was successful," Science Minister Lee Jong-ho said at a press conference.
"We've written a new chapter in the country's history of science and technology."
In the first attempt last October, Nuri reached its desired altitude of 700 kilometres but failed to put a dummy payload into orbit because the engine of the rocket's third stage burned out earlier than planned.
South Korea is now the seventh country in the world to place a satellite weighing more than a tonne into orbit, joining the United States, Russia, China, Japan, European Space Agency and India.
With Tuesday's launch, it also became the world's 10th nation to put a payload into space with its own technology.
"This is a significant step forward in South Korea's efforts to develop space technology that corresponds to its overall industrial power," Lee Choon-geun, an honorary research fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute, said.
Lee added Seoul is likely to have "competitive edges in placing small satellites in low orbits" although other developed countries had the upper hand in launching more powerful, reusable vehicles.
He said South Korea aims to launch four more Nuri rockets over the next five years to enhance stability of this type of vehicle while seeking to develop a more powerful launch vehicle by 2030 that could be used for reaching the moon.
The lift-off also proved the country has key technologies to build a space-based surveillance system and bigger missiles amid animosities with rival North Korea, some experts say.
North Korea placed its first and second Earth observation satellites into orbit in 2012 and 2016 though there is no proof that either one has ever transmitted spaced-based imagery and data back home.
Those North Korean launches invited United Nations economic sanctions because they were viewed as covers for testing the country's banned long-range missile technology.
Since the early 1990s, South Korea has sent a slew of satellites into space, but all from overseas launch sites or aboard a rocket built with the help of foreign technology.
South Korean officials said the Nuri rocket has no military purposes.
The transfer of space launch technology is strictly restricted under a multilateral export control regime because it has military applications.
Experts say ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles share similar bodies, engines and other components, though missiles require a re-entry vehicle and other technologies.
"If you put a satellite on the top of a rocket, it would become a space launch vehicle. But if you mount a warhead on it, it becomes a weapon," said Kwon Yong-soo, a former professor at Korea National Defence University in South Korea.
But research fellow Lee said it's difficult to directly use Nuri as a missile because it uses liquid fuels that must be kept at an extremely low temperature and require much longer fuelling time than solid fuels.
He said North Korean long-range missiles also use liquid fuels, but extremely toxic ones that are maintained at ordinary temperatures and need faster fuelling time than Nuri's.
This year, North Korea has test-launched about 30 missiles with potential ranges that place the US mainland and its regional allies like South Korea and Japan within striking distance.
Kwon said Nuri's successful Nuri launch would prove that South Korea also has the capability to send a spy satellite into orbit.
Seoul currently has no military reconnaissance satellites of its own and depends on US spy satellites to monitor strategic facilities in the North.
Additional reporting by Associated Press
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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