Photo: KBS News
The launch schedule of the space launch vehicle’Nuri’, which was developed with pure Korean technology and scheduled to be launched in February next year, has been postponed to next October.
The second launch was also delayed until May 2022.
The Ministry of Science and ICT held the 18th National Space Committee in writing on the morning of the 29th, and confirmed the’Korea-type launch vehicle development promotion status and future plan’.
The committee explained that the launch time was delayed in reflection of the decision of the evaluation team in charge of’adjustment of the launch date of the Nuri’ is necessary to increase the possibility of successful launch through sufficient preparation.
Earlier, a dedicated evaluation team composed of 15 experts from industry, academia, and research institutes comprehensively reviewed the development schedule for the next three months from September.
The Ministry of Science and Technology said that the most important factor in the schedule adjustment was the development of the first stage of the projectile.
The Nuriho, which is composed of three stages, is composed of four 75t engines clustered (combined) to form one stage, one 75t engine in two stages, and one 7t engine in three stages.
The Ministry of Science and Technology explained that “a technical problem was discovered in the process of clustering the four engines in the first stage that produced the largest thrust among them.”
He said, “Since it is a highly complex process, it is necessary to repeat disassembly and reassembly until authentication model development.”
At present, the 2nd stage has completed the assembly of the certification model, and the 3rd stage has completed the certification model assembly and performance verification.
In addition, after assembling the entire 1st, 2nd and 3rd stages, he explained that an operation experiment (WDR) was added to the schedule to check the integrity of the gas in a cryogenic environment.
At a briefing on the 29th, the Ministry of Science and Technology said, “Because the production of the Nuri is being completed, it is expected that there will be no significant increase in project costs due to the extension of the period.” “We will analyze if it can be resolved in the future and take action later.”
The Nuriho is a Korean space launch vehicle that the government has developed for the first time in Korea with a cost of KRW 1.97 trillion since 2010, and has the capability to put a 1.5t-class utility satellite into low Earth orbit at an altitude of 600 to 800 km. All.
Meanwhile, the’Geometric Public Multi-Communication Satellite Development Project Plan’, which plans to launch the’Cheonrian 3’in 2027, was also confirmed on this day.
The Cheonrian 3 is used for disaster and safety response support such as flood disaster monitoring, maritime activity support, emergency communication support in disaster areas, GPS position correction signal provision, and the role of future satellite communication technology test bed.