The launch of a rocket with a mock-up of a payload weighing 1.5 tons took place on October 21 at 10:00 Moscow time
SEOUL, October 22. /tass/. The first South Korean Nuri launch vehicle (KSLV-II) was unable to launch a mock-up payload into orbit due to a malfunction of the third stage. This was announced by the Minister of Science and Information and Communication Technologies Im Hye Suk, KBS TV channel reported on Friday.
The launch of a rocket with a mock-up payload weighing 1.5 tons took place on October 21 at 17:00 Korean time (10:00 Moscow time) from the Naro cosmodrome in Kohin-gun County of Jeolla-Namdo Province. The main part of the flight went according to plan, in particular, the first and second stages were separated, the fairing was removed, the engine of the third stage started, and at an altitude of 700 km, the satellite layout separated from the rocket head. However, the payload was not put into the specified orbit.
"The speed of the satellite layout after separation from the rocket head was insufficient for launching into near-Earth orbit," said Im Hye Suk.
The Minister explained that the seven-ton liquid-fuel engine of the third stage was supposed to work for 521 seconds, but actually worked for only 475 seconds. This did not allow the payload layout to gain the required speed of 7.5 km/s. A special expert group will investigate the causes of the problem.
South Korean scientists have been developing a launch vehicle since 2010. 2 trillion won ($1.79 billion) were allocated for the project. In May 2022, with the help of Nuri, it is planned to launch a 200-kilogram satellite into orbit.