Korea Overseas Information Service, South Korea successfully launched a satellite from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia on Friday (July 28) that will help the country make timely updates on geographical changes and assist in the search for natural resources.
The 29-meter-long Russian booster, Rockot, lifted off at 11:05 a.m. from the launch pad at the space center, about 800 kilometers northeast of Moscow, to place the multipurpose Arirang 2 satellite into low earth orbit.
Ground-based radar tracking the rocket showed the first- and second-stage boosters separating without problems 50 minutes after the launch.
South Korea's Science Ministry and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), which produced the satellite, also said Arirang 2 had successfully separated from the rocket and deployed its solar panels, which allow it to generate energy.
KARI said the first contact with the satellite took place at 5:26 p.m. Seoul time at the Malindi satellite telemetry station in Kenya. It then made contact with the Svalbard satellite tracking station in Norway at 5:44 p.m.
The state-run research institute also confirmed the third contact between the satellite and engineers at the Daejeon ground control station in South Korea. The exchange of data took place at 10:58 p.m., establishing that Arirang 2 is in its designated orbit 685 kilometers above the Earth and functioning properly.
The 800-kilogram satellite is expected to give the country the ability to take high-resolution pictures of the Earth's surface from its relatively low orbit.
The new satellite is equipped with a high-resolution, multi-spectral camera jointly developed by KARI and Electro-Optics Industries Ltd. of Israel. It has a resolution of 1 square meter, close enough to distinguish individual cars on the ground. Only a handful of countries, including the United States, Russia, France, Israel and Japan, have satellites with cameras with similar resolution.
The camera also provides about 40 times the picture clarity compared to the 6-meter resolution camera on board the Arirang 1 satellite launched in December 1999.
The new multipurpose satellite took seven years to build and cost 263.3 billion won (US$276 million). It can travel at 6.8 kilometers a second and circle the globe every 100 minutes, or 14.5 times a day. It can take photos for about 20 minutes during each orbit. The in-board camera can take photos of 15-kilometer-wide strips of land at every pass, and theoretically photograph the entire Korean Peninsula in about 2 minutes.
The successful launching of the new satellite gives South Korea a total of nine satellites in space. Of those launched so far, only one telecommunications satellite, the Koreasat 1 or Mugunghwa 1, which was sent into orbit in 1995, malfunctioned, resulting in a shorter operational life span.
KARI said the satellite launched Friday has a built-in chip with the names and photos of 121,092 Koreans who wanted their personal data to be sent into orbit.
The institute said the launch of the Arirang 2 opens the door for South Korea to move forward with its space program, which envisions sending nine more satellites into space by 2010.
South Korea is expected to complete the construction of a rocket center in Goheung on the country's south coast next year for the program.
The center is expected to make South Korean aerospace history by using a locally built rocket to launch a 100-kilogram mini satellite into orbit.
This inaugural launch will be followed by the launch of Arirang 5 in 2008 and Arirang 3 the following year. The Arirang 5 is to be equipped with a radar imaging device that can detect developments on the Earth's surface at night and in bad weather. The Arirang 3 will likely be equipped with a camera that has a resolution of about 70 square centimeters.
Experts said that while all South Korean satellites are to be used for commercial purposes they can be made available to gather military information and intelligence.
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