Software delayed KSLV-1 launch

The Korea Herald

GOHEUNG, South Jeolla Province - Errors in the software related to measuring pressure have led to the halt of the launch of Korea's first space rocket, Naro, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said yesterday.

The automatic sequence, a system that checks valves and sensors in the rocket, detected a drop in pressure in a helium high-pressure tank and halted the liftoff with 7 minutes and 56 seconds remaining in the countdown on Wednesday. The tank operates various valves in the rocket.

The software system erroneously recognized the pressure decrease and there was no problem with the hardware, officials said. It is expected to take one to three days to analyze and rectify the errors.

"The software saw what could not be seen as an error, as an error. It was a problem concerning the software recognition," said Lee Ju-jin, head of the state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute.

Vice Science Minister Kim Jung-hyun said that the ministry will do its utmost to launch the rocket within the launch window which extends through to next Wednesday.

"We need time to fix and check the software. A new launch date will be set after all technical issues are addressed," Kim said during a press briefing.

"After Aug. 26, we need to notify the international organizations again of (a new launch date), and then it will take some time. We will try our best to launch the rocket within the launch window."

The two-stage rocket, which is to carry a 100-kilogram experimental satellite into a low earth orbit, was moved yesterday from the launch pad to the assembly complex so workers would address the software issues, officials said.

South Korea cancels satellite launch

The Korean Aerospace Research Institute's KSLV-1, on its launching pad after the scheduled launch was suspended on Wednesday. (Getty Images)

Mark McDonald
New York Times

South Korea canceled the first satellite launching from its own territory on Wednesday only seven minutes before the planned liftoff, attributing the decision to a technical problem.

The terminated mission seemed to avert, for the moment, a new flare-up of tensions with North Korea, which has been condemned internationally for launching its own rockets and has said the United Nations should apply the same punitive standards to the South. South Korea’s aerospace officials told reporters at the Naro Space Center that they had canceled the launching because of a glitch in the in the automatic launching sequence, perhaps as a result of a faulty high-pressure tank. It was unclear why the problem was discovered with only a few minutes before the final countdown.

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South Korea plans launch of KSLV-1, August 11

President Lee Myung-Bak poses in front of the
KSLV-1 rocket (AFP)

As reported last October, when South Korea showed off what was purported to be a mock-up of the KSLV-1 booster, it's now official.

South Korea has rescheduled its first space rocket launch from its soil to August 11 after repeatedly postponing it due to technical reasons, officials said Saturday.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said South Korea and Russia, a co-builder of the rocket, set the new launch date after talks.

"Both sides have set August 11 for blast-off," Kim Hong-Gab, a spokesman for the Korea Aerospace Research Institute affiliated with the ministry, told AFP.

He added weather conditions on the day would be "a decisive factor" to determine if the launch would go ahead as scheduled.

The previously-scheduled launch for around July 30 was postponed -- for a third time -- as Russians who had built the first stage of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 called for more time for testing.

Blast-off had already been delayed from late 2008 to late June this year after China's Sichuan earthquake last year caused problems securing key parts.

South Korea plans to put a satellite weighing 100 kilograms (220 pounds) into a low earth orbit with the planned launch from the newly-built Naro Space Centre in Goheung, 475 kilometres (300 miles) south of Seoul.

South Korea is eager to join Asia's space race. In November 2007 it announced a plan to launch a lunar orbiter by 2020 and send a probe to the moon five years after that.

It unveiled the project one month after China launched its first lunar orbiter and two months after Japan.

In April last year Seoul sent its first astronaut into space aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.

ROK completes Naro Space Center

Windsor Genova
AHN

Seoul - South Korea has completed building the country's $249 million space center after eight years of work, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) said Wednesday.

The Naro Space Center is located 300 miles south of the capital Seoul and has an area of 1,252 acres. It will build rockets and launch South Korean satellites into orbit, MEST said.

The state-of-the-art mission control center has launch and flight safety control facilities, launch pad, meteorological observatory and both radar and optical tracking systems to follow the trajectory of all rockets launched, the ministry said, according to Joongangdaily.joins.com.

The center will launch its first two-stage rocket called Korea Satellite Launch Vechile-1 or Naro-1 on July 30. The launch will make South Korea the 13th country capable of sending satellites into orbit.

The Naro-1, which can carry a payload of 220 pounds, will send a small scientific satellite into orbit.

The center will build a second rocket scheduled to be launched in 2018, Yoo Guk-hee, head of the ministry's space development division, told Joong Ang Daily. The second Naro rocket will send an unmanned lunar orbiter in 2020, according to Yoo.