South Korean and Russian experts launched an investigation yesterday after the fiery failure of the Asian country’s latest rocket launch, which some researchers blamed on inadequate testing.
The Naro-1 rocket veered off course and exploded 137 seconds after blast-off on Thursday.
The mishap came after a first rocket failure last year, thwarting South Korea’s plans to launch a scientific satellite and setting back its dreams of joining Asia’s space race.
The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) said the debris fell into the sea about 470km south of the Naro Space Center’s launch pad off the southern coast.
KARI yesterday convened a meeting of a joint investigation committee of the two countries to determine the cause of the failure, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said.
“It went wrong after the first-stage rocket completed two-thirds of its work,” KARI research fellow Chae Yeon-seok said.
Researchers said this was verified by video from a camera mounted on the rocket as well as live TV footage, which both showed a sudden brightening and orange flames of an explosion.
South Korea was trying to join an exclusive club currently numbering nine nations that have put a satellite into orbit using a domestically assembled rocket.
Its first attempt failed last August when fairings on the nose cone of the Naro-1 did not open properly to release the satellite.
“It is very regretful that we were unable to verify whether the faulty aspects that caused last year’s failure were properly addressed this time, as we lost the rocket too early in flight,” Chae said.
He and other South Korean researchers said the Russian first-stage engine was a new vehicle that was still under development and whose performance was not fully tested through flights.
“When we launched the rocket in the first attempt last year, that was the only flight test before this launch. We have not had many chances to verify its credibility,” Chae said.
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