The launch is part of a 2.6 trillion won or about US $1.8bil programme that will see six rocket launches through 2027. — Bloomberg
SEOUL: South Korea has marked its first rocket launch in partnership with a private company, a milestone in the country’s bid to become a bigger player in the global space race.
The Nuri rocket lifted off at 1:13am local time yesterday from the Naro Space Centre in the country’s south.
A next-generation satellite established initial contact with a ground station in in Antarctica at 1:55am, and all of the 12 cubesats successfully separated and landed in their target orbit at 600km, the space agency said.
“The successful launch not only reaffirms our country’s independent space transport capabilities, but also marks the first joint public-private operation, which provides a significant turning point in the transition of South Korea’s space industry ecosystem to the private sector,” Science Minister Bae Kyunghoon told a briefing.
The launch is part of a 2.6 trillion won or about US $1.8bil programme that will see six rocket launches through 2027.
The Nuri is the country’s first homegrown space vehicle, debuting in 2021 but achieving its first successful flight the following year.
The mission is critical to South Korea and its young space agency as it marks the formal hand-off of launch operations from the state to the private sector – a transition modelled after the SpaceX-driven boom in the US commercial space industry.
The launch was led by defence contractor Hanwha Aerospace Co, which secured full exclusive rights in July to Nuri technology through the Korea Aerospace Research Institute for about 24 billion won.
The company helped assemble earlier iterations of the Nuri as the main engine developer.
The rocket is designed to reach an altitude of 600km and carry a 960kg payload consisting of a next-generation satellite and 12 cubesats.
For South Korea, the success of a privately-run Nuri mission could help redefine its role in Asia’s evolving space race at a time when access to orbit increasingly signals geopolitical and technological clout.
Many nations are also seeking to reduce reliance on US, Chinese or Russian launch systems and foster private-sector ecosystems capable of sustaining innovation.
South Korea’s programme has a particularly strong element of national pride, given its proximity to North Korea, which said in 2023 it had put a spy satellite into orbit.
Seoul wants to boost its share of the global space economy to 10% by 2045 from about 1% now.
“Government-led programmes are mostly inefficient, time-consuming and barely feasible, and you can’t keep pace with other countries and compete in this era,” said Kim Jeong Soo, professor at Pukyong National University’s space propulsion lab.
“You have to bring companies to speed up the process and make it profitable as soon as possible so that they’ll invest more.” — Bloomberg
