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| On the 18th (local time), members of the NASA Inverance probe team cheered after receiving confirmation that they had successfully landed on Mars at the NASA Jet Propulsion Research Institute in Pasadena, California. The headquarters of the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that it was “touch-down confirmation” around 3:55 p.m. Eastern Time. © AFP=News1 © News1 Reporter Dongwon Lee |
The US, China, and UAE probes launched in July last year arrived on Mars in succession. It is pointed out that Korea needs a control tower to pursue a continuous policy in order to promote space exploration and development such as Mars exploration in the mid to long term.
On the morning of the 19th, NASA announced that the Mars probe, Perseverance, had successfully landed on the surface of Mars. Accordingly, the Mars probes of the United States, China, and UAE, launched in July of last year, arrived on Mars, and the UAE and China had previously entered Mars orbit.
◇Three countries that arrived on Mars… On Mars in the future?
The UAE’s Mars probe’Amal’, which first entered Mars orbit, left Earth with a Japanese projectile. Amal will test scientific equipment and systems in orbit on Mars, and embark on full-scale observation missions for four years.
The elliptical orbit that traverses the planet’s equator has never been used in other Mars explorations, allowing the Amalho to measure and compare daily, yearly, and seasonal climate changes between the upper and lower Mars atmospheres. . The data acquired by Amalho will be released for the first time in September and will be made available to scientists around the world.
China’s Tenwon 1 is a combination of an orbiter, a lander, and a mobile exploration vehicle (rover). It is characterized by sending three types of trajectories, landings, and rovers, which the existing countries sent separately. Tenwon is currently in Mars orbit, and in May, the lander and rover are expected to reach Mars’ surface (Utopia Plains). It is estimated that there is a large amount of ice in the Utopian Plain. The lander and rover conduct an investigation into Mars’ soil, geological structure and environment.
Martian soil harvesting is the main task of American Perseverance. The ultimate goal is to bring Martian soil to Earth. Upon arriving at the Mars Jezero crater, the Perservance places soil samples in pre-prepared containers. Then, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will return to Earth with this soil container aboard a recovery vessel to launch in 2026. In addition, the vehicle test in a sparse atmosphere is also conducted. There is also a helicopter called Ingenuity in the facility.
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| Imagination of Perseverance on Mission on Mars (Provided by NASA/JPL-Caltech) 2020.07.29 /News 1 |
◇Korea cannot escape from the global sphere… The’control tower’ needs to be built for a strategic approach
If the Korean launch vehicle Nuri, scheduled for a test launch in October, is successfully completed, Korea will have its own ability to place satellites in low Earth orbit.
According to the astronomical and space science community, if the current 3-stage launcher, Nuri, is converted to a 4-stage, it is expected to secure the ability to send a probe to the moon.
Korea’s space technology has developed mainly around satellite development. In the satellite field, it has developed enough to be able to export such as providing satellite technology to the UAE, which arrived on Mars this time. In addition, the room (chamber) that simulates the lunar environment, the technology for producing soil (moon-soil) to create an environment like the moon, and the base technology for space communication are evaluated to have reached a considerable level.
Despite the existence of such technology, the space-related industry cited the absence of a control tower as one of the reasons why Korea’s advance into space is not active.
Representatively, in the case of the lunar exploration project, the plan continued to change according to the regime. In the Roh Moo-Hyun administration’s 2007 space development action roadmap, plans to launch a lunar orbiter in 2020 and a lunar lander in 2025 were established.
In 2012, then candidate Park Geun-hye made a speech on her promise to land on the moon in 2020 at the presidential election TV debate. Since then, the Park Geun-hye administration revised its plans to launch a lunar orbiter in 2018 and a lunar landing ship in 2020. The Moon Jae-in administration initially planned the launch of the lunar orbiter in 2020 and the lunar landing ship in 2030 (the 2018 Space Development Promotion Basic Plan), but finally, due to problems such as orbit and weight, the plan to launch an orbiter in 2022 and a lander after 2030. It was done.
In order to prevent this from happening, the claim that the establishment of the’Space Agency’, which will serve as a control tower, has been consistently made by industry and academia related to astronomical space, but has not been realized. In 2019, Democratic Party lawmaker Roh Woong-rae, Liberal Korean Party lawmaker Kim Se-hyun, and Democratic Party lawmaker Song Young-gil each proposed a bill to establish a new organization dedicated to space policy.
Currently, Korea’s space development policy is under the jurisdiction of the National Space Commission, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Large Public Research Policy Division and Space Technology Division.
In the astronomical and space world, it is pointed out that the policy direction is changed according to the rotational system of government officials as they are in charge of space policy at the department of the Ministry of Science and ICT. As the person in charge of the long-term space project has been changed after two to three years due to a rotational position, it is impossible to guarantee the expertise and consistency of the policy.
Young-bin Yoon, professor of aerospace department at Seoul National University, said, “In the space sector, investments in the long term for 10 or 20 years are required to achieve results. In the mid- to long-term, consistent plans are required to achieve an effect.” As a result, when they have a little specialized knowledge, they are assigned to other departments, and new public officials must go through the process of learning again.”
One of the backgrounds for this claim is that the UAE, Luxembourg, Australia, and India, which are recently making efforts to become a space powerhouse, are taking a strategic approach by forming a dedicated administrative organization corresponding to the’Space Agency’.
Professor Yoon added, “There is a possibility that space development will accelerate unlike in the past. If the state efficiently promotes space industry development and investment in the long term, a lot of private companies can be born.”