South Korea has taken an important step in the development of its own space industry by launching its first rocket fully led by a private company. This marks a key milestone in Seoul's ambitions to strengthen its position in the global space race. This was reported by Bloomberg, writes UNN.
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The Nuri rocket lifted off from the Naro Space Center at 1:13 a.m. local time, and all satellites successfully separated just 15 minutes after launch, the space agency said. The launch was part of a 2.6 trillion won ($1.8 billion) program that includes six missions by 2027.
A key element of the flight was that launch operations were officially transferred to the private sector for the first time. Hanwha Aerospace, a defense company that received exclusive rights to the technology in July, is now responsible for Nuri. It was responsible for assembling the engines for previous versions of the rocket.
Nuri is capable of reaching an altitude of 600 km and delivering 960 kg of payload into orbit, including an innovative next-generation satellite and 12 CubeSats.
In Seoul, the successful private launch is seen as an opportunity to strengthen the country's position in the Asian space race, where access to orbit is becoming a matter of technological and geopolitical weight. South Korea aims to increase its share of the global space economy to 10% by 2045 – from the current approximately 1%.
Government programs are mostly inefficient, labor-intensive, and barely feasible... You have to bring in companies to speed up the process and make it profitable as quickly as possible.
However, despite its success, Seoul's space program still lags behind Japan and China and faces management problems and project delays. Nevertheless, Nuri's first private launch significantly strengthens the country's position in the regional space race.