Goheung:South Korea's Nuri rocket is scheduled for its fifth launch on Wednesday, aiming to place 15 satellites into orbit, including five that are part of the country's first domestically launched microsatellite constellation.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the launch is planned for around 12:25 p.m. from the Naro Space Center in Goheung, located approximately 330 kilometers south of Seoul. The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) will finalize the exact launch time later in the morning.
The payload includes five New-space Earth Observation Satellite Constellation for National Safety (NEONSAT) microsatellites and 10 CubeSats. The launch team is set to begin fueling the three-stage rocket with kerosene and liquid oxygen about four hours before liftoff after completing all system checks.
Nuri's first and second stages will detach 123 and 268 seconds after liftoff, respectively. Satellite deployment is expected to start between 810 and 960 seconds post-launch at an altitude of around 575 kilometers. The NEONSATs, numbered 2 through 6, will deploy at 35-40 second intervals, with the upper stage rotating about 45 degrees between each release to prevent collisions. Following this, the CubeSats will deploy two at a time at 10-second intervals.
Upon deploying all satellites, Nuri will perform a collision-avoidance maneuver and vent its remaining fuel, concluding its flight approximately 20 minutes after liftoff. The rocket will then remain in orbit before eventually re-entering Earth's atmosphere and burning up.
The Korea Aerospace Research Institute will oversee the flight from monitoring facilities in South Korea and Palau in the western Pacific. This launch marks Nuri's first attempt to sequentially deploy multiple primary satellites for the same mission.
Each NEONSAT weighs less than 100 kilograms and is equipped with an electro-optical camera that can identify objects as small as 1 meter in black-and-white images and 4 meters in color images. The satellites are tasked with monitoring the Korean Peninsula and nearby regions for national security and disaster response.
The complete NEONSAT constellation will include 10 satellites, with the remaining five set to launch aboard Nuri's sixth flight next year. Once fully operational, the constellation will be capable of imaging the Korean Peninsula more than three times a day and revisiting the same location within 24 hours.