Nuri success heralds the dawn of space business in Korea

With the successful launch of Nuri, Korea has entered the "new space era," with more than 300 domestic companies taking part.

Screengrabs of videos taken by cameras installed in the Nuri, or the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-II, during the separation process of a cover surrounding the payloads. The separated cover is shown in the image below left. Nuri was successfully launched from the Naro Space Center in Goheung County, South Jeolla, Tuesday. [KARI]

With the successful launch of Nuri, Korea has entered the "new space era," with more than 300 domestic companies taking part.

The three-stage, liquid-fueled Korea Space Launch Vehicle-II (KSLV-II) — its formal name — blasted off from the launch pad with a roar at 4 p.m. Tuesday, on time, carrying a 1,500-kilogram payload, including a performance verification satellite, four cube satellites (CubeSat) and a dummy payload. The small-sized CubeSats are placed inside the performance verification satellite.

On Wednesday, it was confirmed that the satellite successfully achieved two-way communication with its ground station around 3 a.m. Wednesday, the day after the launch, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT.

"Following the two-way communication with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) ground station in Daejeon, Nuri's satellite deployment capability has been fully confirmed," the ministry said in a statement.

The space project, which began in March 2010, involved over 300 private companies, including Hanwha Aerospace.

In the designing, building, testing and launching, every step was accomplished by private corporations, with over 500 people from 30 companies involved in developing and manufacturing the main parts of the rocket.

The project has cost around 1.96 trillion won ($1.5 billion), with 80 percent, or 1.5 trillion won, being invested by private companies.

The Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) took the lead in the three-stage rocket system, which has 370,000 parts. This is almost 20 times more than the 20,000 auto parts used to make one car.

KAI, which joined the Nuri project in 2014, built the first-stage fuel tank and oxidizer tank and assembled parts supplied by domestic companies.

Hanwha Aerospace supplied engines for the mission.

"We are very proud of the successful launch of Nuri as a company that was in charge of the making the engines, the heart of the rocket," said a spokesperson for Hanwha Aerospace.

"We will try our best and contribute to the development of the space industry in Korea."

Hyundai Heavy Industries spearheaded the development of the launch pad based on its experience in building the Naro, or KSLV-I, launch pad, the first carrier rocket in Korea, in 2013. Naro is the predecessor of Nuri, but was partly built with technologies from Russia.

Hyundai Heavy Industries started developing the launch pad for Nuri in 2016 and finally completed it after 4 years and 6 months. The company also built a 48-meter (158 feet) umbilical tower, which is used to inject fuel into the rocket.

Hyundai Rotem set up testing equipment for propulsion units, while Doowon Heavy Industrial played a major role in building the rocket's frame.

The space industry globally has recently shifted from the so-called "old space era," where government agencies took the helm in space projects and technological advancements, to the "new space era," led by the private sector. SpaceX, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are three private space companies headquartered in the United States.

Both the government and the industry expect more space endeavors will be led by private entities in the future with the successful launch of the Nuri.

The Yoon Suk-yeol government has pledged to actively support the space industry and is planning to do so by transferring technologies to private companies so that the entire launch vehicle project could be solely led by private corporations.

Previously, these projects were led by KARI with private companies taking some part in manufacturing and assembly. KAI, Hanwha and Kolon are some of the domestic companies that are actively looking into the space business.

"I am sure this is a major milestone for Korea's advancement in the space industry," said Yoo Hwan-ik, head of the Federation of Korean Industries industrial research division.

"We hope this would lead to creating more jobs in the space industry and economic growth."

The Federation of Middle Market Enterprises of Korea said in a statement that "this is the achievement of persistent collaboration between private corporations and the government during the past decade. We thank the government as well as the 300 companies that have participated in the project."

BY KIM GYEONG-MI, CHO JUNG-WOO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]