Seoul (AFP) Oct 21, 2021 South Korea launched its first domestically developed space rocket on...
South Korea launched its first domestically developed space rocket on Thursday but failed to put its dummy payload into orbit, a setback in the country's attempts to join the ranks of advanced space-faring nations.
The Korea Space Launch Vehicle II, informally called Nuri and emblazoned with a South Korean flag, rose upwards from Goheung on the southern coast trailing a column of flame.
All three stages of the rocket worked, taking it to an altitude of 700 kilometres, and the 1.5-tonne payload separated successfully, President Moon Jae-in said after watching the launch at the control centre.
In Asia, China, Japan and India all have advanced space programmes, and the South's nuclear-armed neighbour North Korea was the most recent entrant to the club of countries with their own satellite launch capability.
Even now, only six nations - not including North Korea - have successfully launched a one-tonne payload on their own rockets.
The South Korean space programme has a chequered record - its first two launches in 2009 and 2010, which in part used Russian technology, both ended in failure, the second one exploding two minutes into the flight and Seoul and Moscow blaming each other.
The satellite launch business is increasingly the preserve of private companies, notably Elon Musk's SpaceX, whose clients include the US space agency NASA and the South Korean military.
One expert said a successful Nuri launch could offer South Korea "Infinite" potential.
"Rockets are the only means available to mankind to go out into space," Lee Sang-ryul, the director of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, told local paper Chosun Biz ahead of the launch.
Thursday's mission was one step on an increasingly ambitious space programme for South Korea, which Moon previously said would seek to launch a lunar orbiter next year, after he inspected a Nuri engine test in March.