South Korean space developments

[savuporo]

When i look at international launch manifests i always feel like there is a gap where something should say "South Korea"
The country is obviously a technological and industrial powerhouse, so i'm surprised that the likes of Samsung, LG and Hyundai chaebols, who otherwise have their hands in pretty much everything from microelectronics to shipbuilding are not looking at launch markets.

So i refreshed my background reading:
KSLV-II update from July 30 this year :
 http://www.koreatimesus.com/s-korea-to-begin-2nd-stage-of-space-rocket-development/

The 300-ton space rocket, named the Korea Space Launch Vehicle 2 (KSLV-II), will be test-fired during the third and final stage of the space program that will commence in April 2018.
The first stage of the 1.96 trillion-won (US$1.68 billion) program began in March 2010, in which the country successfully built and test-fired a 7-ton thrust engine, the ministry said

Wow, $1.7B for a 7-ton engine ? Thats a .. steep asking price. Rocketry is hard and expensive, but you dont have to invent everything from scratch these days.

Then i found this thread with lots of pretty pictures:
http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=35515
(rocket pr0n)

Here is a backgrounder from 2013 written after the first successful Naro-1 launch:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2230/1

EDIT: Whoops, of course there was a previous thread that i should have found: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=18193.msg453094
And this:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33272.0

[zotiraki]

I'm a little surprised there isn't more about South Korea's space program in this forum.  Maybe there's a thread I'm missing?
The attached file is a copy of a 3 Jan 2014 file from KARI (I believe).  I used google to translate the Korean so it's not perfect.  Seems to me there should be an update to this somewhere but couldn't find it.  Probably have to conduct a search in Korean.

Cheers,

Mike

[russianhalo117]

I'm a little surprised there isn't more about South Korea's space program in this forum.  Maybe there's a thread I'm missing?
The attached file is a copy of a 3 Jan 2014 file from KARI (I believe).  I used google to translate the Korean so it's not perfect.  Seems to me there should be an update to this somewhere but couldn't find it.  Probably have to conduct a search in Korean.

Cheers,

Mike

Here for starters:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32355.0
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33272.0
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27497.0
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=18193.0
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=21079.0
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=5954.0
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=1945.0
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=1784.0

[zotiraki]

Thanks for the info, but still nothing very current. 

Cheers,

Mike

[savuporo]

There simply isnt much info in english. This was most recent somewhat surprising bit:

https://twitter.com/elakdawalla/status/623621668548816896

MT @barbylon S Korea lunar orbiter "pathfinder" mission to launch in 2018, construction of a Korean DSN node, science payload development.

MT @barbylon S Korea will seek instruments for lunar orbiter through AO in "early 2016", open to international participants #nesf2015

I wonder if this is a translation error, as i though the plan was to get KSLV-II flying first, which is not going to happen that soon.

[zotiraki]

Check out http://eng.kari.re.kr/sub01_02_101 Lunar Pathfinder precedes Lunar Orbiter/Lander apparently.

[savuporo]

Check out http://eng.kari.re.kr/sub01_02_101 Lunar Pathfinder precedes Lunar Orbiter/Lander apparently.

Thats interesting.
This was what KARI was showing a year ago, thats the lander.


I remember reading something about re-organization and re-budgeting of the entire national space effort in Korea, including some vague references to political scandals, but dont have english references at hand. Would be interesting to know if there is actually a new direction.

[zotiraki]

Best I can tell no new direction.  It looks like they are executing their space plan IAW the leaflet I attached a few posts ago.
There is a 2015 Space Plan but it's in Korean.  I suspect it lays out specific projects and budgets for this year.  Too bad we don't have a Korean speaker interested in keeping this updated.

Cheers,

Mike

[Star One]

S. Korea to push moon exploration through 2020

SEOUL, Dec. 30 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's science ministry said Wednesday it plans to launch a lunar exploration project next year, eventually seeking to send a landing vessel by 2020.

Under the first stage of the project that will run from 2016 to 2018, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning will allocate 197.8 billion won (US$169 million) to conduct research and send an orbiter.

The ministry said it has already secured a 20 billion-won budget for 2016.

South Korea plans to develop the orbiter and the ground station independently with its own technologies, the ministry added.

It will also seek cooperation with overseas researchers, such as the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to develop payloads.

For the second phase of the project, the ministry will send a landing vessel to the moon with its own developed launch vehicle.

The ministry added it will make efforts to utilize its prior experiences in developing satellites.

[email protected]

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2015/12/30/0504000000AEN20151230002200320.html

[wesley]

Too bad we don't have a Korean speaker interested in keeping this updated.

Well, I'm a Korean speaker, so... here it is.

I've been following the KARI Facebook page for some time and there have been some recent developments worth noting. Sadly for international readers, it's all in Korean as you'd expect. So I'll provide some condensed info here.

Quick recap on the KSLV-II rocket:

1st stage: 75-Ton (735kN) engine x 4
2nd stage: 75-Ton engine x 1
3rd stage: 7-Ton (69kN) engine x 1

The engines are currently being developed more or less from scratch (apart from the sounding rocket development in the 1990s with the KSR program) because Korea had hoped to get some technology transfers from Russia by using the RD-191 engine in the KSLV-I Naro last decade, but did not go as planned.

Engine build and test facilities have been completed last year (2015) near the site of the KSLV-I Naro launch at Oenarodo, Goheung-gun, South Jeolla Province.

On December 2015, the 7-Ton engine successfully completed a 100-second burn test:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9YaubKHRYZ0

What's being planned now according to KARI?

7-Ton engine:
- 160 iterations of further testing
- Lengthen burn time up to 500 seconds

75-Ton engine
- First burn test in 1st quarter of 2016
- 220 iterations of testing

First test launch vehicle
- 75-Ton engine proving platform with one engine in the first stage (KSLV-II has four, as mentioned)
- Launched planned at the end of 2017

KSLV-II's first official launch is still slated for 2020.


If anyone is interested in this development, I'll try to update this from time to time as new stuff comes up.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Thanks wesley. Can you let us know what the propellants are for each stage?

[wesley]

Thanks wesley. Can you let us know what the propellants are for each stage?

Drawing from the KSLV-2 official project site: http://www.kslv2.or.kr/sub0406

1st Stage
- 4 x 75-Ton LOX/Kerosene Turbo Pump Engine
- Isogrid Propellant Tank
- Propellant Mass: 130 Tons
- 3-Axis Control using Propellant - Hydraulic Nozzle Gimballing

2nd Stage
- 1 x 75-Ton LOX/Kerosene Turbo Pump Engine
- Propellant Mass: 35.6 Tons
- Pitch & Yaw Control using Propellant - Hydraulic Nozzle Gimballing
- Roll Control using Gas Generator Exhaust

3rd Stage
- 1 x 7-Ton LOX/Kerosene Turbo Pump Engine
- Propellant Mass: 10.7 Tons
- Pitch & Yaw Control using Electromechanical Nozzle Gimballing
- Roll Control using Cold Gas Thrusters

Payload Fairing
- Diameter: 3.05m
- Length: 8.0m
- Clean Separation System
- Customer-Specified Access Door

Payload Loading
- Mission Control System
- Telemetry System
- Tracking & Flight Safety System
- Power Supply System

The drawing also shows interstages between 1st/2nd and 2nd/3rd.

I suppose this answers some of the questions about the specifications of the rocket.

[wesley]

Wow, $1.7B for a 7-ton engine ? Thats a .. steep asking price. Rocketry is hard and expensive, but you dont have to invent everything from scratch these days.

This is an interesting point to note. The fact is that South Korea is wedged between Russia, China, Japan and... North Korea. Now consider, would any of those countries be willing to cooperate on enabling South Korea to build a rocket... which can also be potentially be used as an ICBM? Japan invaded and annexed Korean peninsula for 35 years in the first half of the 20th century, so the diplomatic relations always carry some tension at best. The other three countries stood on the opposite side during the cold war, so that's icky as well.

Russians did come close because they needed money after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 90s, but the cooperation fell apart as I mentioned earlier.

Meanwhile, United States used to impose rocket development ban on South Korea for quite some time as part of the military protection agreement, which includes stationing of a significant number of American troops in SK, acting as a deterrent for the North Korean invasion. This ostensibly was to prevent escalation of arms race between South-North Korean situation, but it's evident that North Korea just went ahead and built their own ICBM anyway. So what happened was that this was relaxed so that non-military, liquid propellant rocket development could proceed. But US had no intention of providing any underlying technology.

As a result, South Korea was practically left to invent rockets from scratch. And this is why there's no solid propellant stage in their indigenous rockets, and that there's a ton of money being thrown in.

If you ask me, KSLV-2 would've come to fruition a lot earlier without the Russian semi-cooperation. KSLV-1 would've been built using the indigenous KSR-3 technology according to the original plans. But now it's just a historical what-if. I just hope things go as planned with what were left with.

[TrevorMonty]

Any payload masses for LEO and TLI?

[Steven Pietrobon]

Some other images. Looks like they are using different diameters for the second and third stage.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Some interesting videos here

http://www.kslv2.or.kr/sub0405/articles/view/tableid/slv-ii_movie/id/300
http://www.kslv2.or.kr/sub0405/articles/view/tableid/slv-ii_movie/id/304
http://www.kslv2.or.kr/sub0405/articles/view/tableid/slv-ii_movie/id/424
http://www.kslv2.or.kr/sub0405/articles/view/tableid/slv-ii_movie/id/703
http://www.kslv2.or.kr/sub0405/articles/view/tableid/slv-ii_movie/id/704

Here are some screen grabs from the fourth video. The payload looks to be 1.5 t into a Sun synchronous orbit (SSO).

[Steven Pietrobon]

Lots of nice images here.

http://www.kslv2.or.kr/sub0404/articles/index/tableid/kslv-ii_photo/page/1

If you have trouble accessing an image, continuously keep on clicking on the image.

[wesley]

Any payload masses for LEO and TLI?

[Please note that the links are all in Korean except for the eoPortal one - I will be translating the relevant bits into this post]

The official site mentions that it will be able to put 1,500kg of payload into orbit at 600 to 800km altitude. This has been repeated practically ad nauseam in Korea on pretty much every press release related to this project.

Launch profiles mentioned in the site includes "sun-synchronous orbit" at the main page and "polar orbit" in the FAQ.

http://www.kslv2.or.kr/sub0601/articles/view/tableid/faq/id/213

I believe it's referring to the same thing because this rocket's launch profile is strongly modeled after the ones used for Korea's own KOMPSAT (a.k.a. Arirang) series of multi-purpose satellites that use near-polar sun-synchronous orbits.

https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/k/kompsat-5

You'll see that the latest version, KOMPSAT-5, launched in 2013 using a Russian launcher, has a total mass of about 1,400kg and is in a sun-synchronous orbit with a mean altitude of 550km.

The FAQ also mentions that the upper stages may be upgraded to send a 500kg payload to Moon. This is highly likely a reference to the Korean Moon exploration program currently under way as a part of the pledge by the current president (Ms. Park Geun-hye). The payload is expected to include an orbiter and a lander, and it's hoped to be launched by 2020 atop KSLV-2, or if the project fails to deliver a working launcher, an American one.

http://www.hani.co.kr/arti/science/science_general/607152.html

This news article from 2013 mentions how that "upgrade" will work. The KSLV-2 will have a 4th stage added, which uses a kick motor developed with KSLV-1, which I believe refers to KSLV-1's 2nd stage. Once KSLV-2 reaches a parking orbit at 300km altitude, the 4th stage will start up, add 3.1+km/s delta-v and break free of the Earth's gravitational pull.

The article also specifies that the orbiter+lander payload is targeted to be 550kg and the lander will include a robot weighing 20kg.

http://www.hankookilbo.com/v/c3cdecb1f0c0414c86d4fe8f99f9ef9f

This news article from October 2015 has some further tidbits about the Moon program. The 2020 deadline is still on track, while 2018 will supposedly see a preliminary lunar orbiter launch, with the help from NASA. While it does not mention what launch vehicle is to be used, it'll be highly likely to be a foreign one - KSLV-2 will only see a test launch of a single 75-Ton engine prototype by the end of 2017 as noted in the earlier post.

[Stan-1967]

Very interesting to see the roadmap from the single engine, then 2, then 4, then 9.   I think they have been paying attention to another successful entrant into the global launch market.   They are working on a M1-D class G.G engine and similar engine configurations further down their roadmap.   The KSLV IV looks pretty darn close to the SpaceX FH, and if I interpreted the figures right, they say it will get 64t to LEO.   I also think I am seeing a 4.4m core & 47m tall vehicle called out in the picture.  So its a bit more squatty than FH.  They also look to be trying to gain some staging efficiency with the 3 stage configuration.   I'd be interested in the mass fractions they are projecting for the various stages of the KSLV-IV.

[wesley]

One personal thing to note - launch site for both KSLV-1 and KSLV-2 are situated only about 90km (56mi) southeast from where I live. I've personally visited the place before, as well. So I'm keeping an eye on these projects from not so far away, so to speak.

Here's the scale model (after assembly) of the KSLV-1 Naro that I bought at the souvenir shop near the launch site.