Seoul (TIP): South Korea plans to test its first domestically produced space launch vehicle next week, a major step toward jumpstarting the country’s space programme and achieving ambitious goals in 6G networks, spy satellites, and even lunar probes.

If all goes well, the three-stage NURI rocket, designed by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) to eventually put 1.5-ton payloads into orbit 600 to 800km above the Earth, will carry a dummy satellite into space on October 14.

South Korea’s last such booster, launched in 2013 after multiple delays and several failed tests, was jointly developed with Russia. The new KSLV-II NURI has solely Korean rocket technologies, and is the country’s first domestically built space launch vehicle, said Han Sang-yeop, director of KARI’s Launcher Reliability Safety Quality Assurance Division.

“Having its own launch vehicle gives a country the flexibility of payload types and launch schedule,” he told Reuters in an email.

Military and civilian benefits

It also gives the country more control over “confidential payloads” it may want to send into orbit, Han said.

That will be important for South Korea’s plans to launch surveillance satellites into orbit, in what national security officials have called a constellation of “unblinking eyes” to monitor North Korea. So far, South Korea has remained almost totally reliant on the United States for satellite intelligence on its northern neighbour.

In 2020 a Falcon 9 rocket from the US firm Space X carried South Korea’s first dedicated military communications satellite into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NURI is also key to South Korean plans to eventually build a Korean satellite-based navigation system and a 6G communications network.

“The program is designed not only to support government projects, but also commercial activity,” Oh Seung-hyub, director of the Launcher Propulsion System Development Division, told a briefing on Tuesday. South Korea is working with the United States on a lunar orbiter, and hopes to land a probe on the moon by 2030.

Trial launch

Given problems with previous launches, Han and other planners said they have prepared for the worst.

The launch day may be changed at the last minute if weather or technical problems arise; the craft will carry a self-destruct mechanism to destroy it if it appears it won’t reach orbit; and media won’t be allowed to observe the test directly. At least four test launches are planned before the rocket will be considered reliable enough to carry a real payload.According to pre-launch  briefing slides, the rocket’s planned path will take it southeast from its launch site on the south coast of the Korean peninsula, threading its way over the ocean on a trajectory aimed at avoiding flying over Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and other major land masses. (Reuters)

Norway killings being treated as act of terror

Kongsberg (TIP): A Danish man suspected of killing five people with a bow and arrow and possibly other weapons while randomly shooting at strangers in a small Norwegian town appears to have committed an act of terrorism, authorities in Norway said on October 14. The Wednesday night attack at a supermarket and other locations in downtown Kongsberg, a town of about 26,000 residents not far from Norway’s capital, left the country stunned as police released some details, including that officers made contact with the 37-year-old suspect but he initially escaped.

“From what we know now, it is reasonably clear that some, probably everyone, was killed after the police were in contact with the perpetrator,” regional police chief Ole B Saeverud said. The victims were four women and one man between the ages of 50 and 70. Three other people were injured, the police said. — AP