South Korea's first lunar orbiter launched by SpaceX

A slow shutter speed image showing a trail SpaceX's Starlink satellites. Danuri was on a Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida by Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX. — AFP

SEOUL: South Korea's first lunar orbiter successfully launched on a year-long mission to observe the Moon, Seoul said Friday, with the payload including a new disruption-tolerant network for sending data from space.

Danuri – a portmanteau of the Korean words for "Moon" and "enjoy" – was on a Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida by Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX. It aims to reach the Moon by mid-December.