Danuri enters target orbit around moon, early and in good form

With the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter — the spacecraft's formal name — successfully reaching mission orbit, Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) became the seventh space agency to put a satellite into orbit around the moon.

SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle takes off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, on Aug. 4. [SPACEX]

Danuri, Korea's first lunar orbiter, successfully entered its target orbit around the moon after a 145-day journey through space.

“Korea’s science has gone beyond the Earth to reach the moon,” said Vice Minister Oh Tae-Seog of Science and ICT Wednesday.

With the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter — the spacecraft's formal name — successfully reaching mission orbit, Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) became the seventh space agency to put a satellite into orbit around the moon, following those of Russia, the United States, Japan, the European Union, China and India.

Since 2016, when the program was established, over 236.7 billion won ($186.5 million) has been poured into the Danuri project.

Vice Minister Oh Tae-Seog of Science and ICT speaks during a press briefing held at the government complex in central Seoul, Wednesday. [YONHAP]

The success of the lunar mission will serve as the foundation for Korea’s long-term goals, such as a moon landing in 2032 and a Mars landing in 2045, said the science ministry.

“Based on the data collected by Danuri, the government will launch a lunar lander on a domestically developed rocket in 2032,” said Oh.

The announcement came two days earlier than scheduled, as the satellite was able to achieve the target orbit 100 kilometers (62 miles) above the moon’s surface through three lunar orbit insertion (LOI) maneuvers instead of the initially planned five LOI maneuvers.

During the LOI process, a spacecraft lowers its speed to enter the moon's orbit

Danuri carried out its third and last LOI maneuver at 11:06 a.m. Tuesday, and is currently circling the moon every two hours at the speed of 1.62 kilometers per second.

“After carrying out the first LOI maneuver, we found that the result was very successful and a sufficient amount of data had been collected,” said Kim Dae-kwan, head of the Danuri project at KARI.

An image of Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, or Danuri [KOREA AEROSPACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE]

Kim explained that the KARI engineers decided to combine the second and the third LOI maneuvers into one, and also the fourth with the fifth, to save more time for trajectory analysis.

Danuri consumed 167 kilograms of its 260-kilogram fuel so far, which is in line with the initial plan, and the rest will be used during the mission.

The domestically-developed lunar orbiter was launched on Aug. 5, carried by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Danuri traveled a cumulative 7.3 million kilometers over the past four and a half months on a "ballistic lunar transfer trajectory." It headed toward the sun first, as far as 1.6 million kilometers from Earth, before heading toward the moon by using the gravitational pull of planets.

It successfully completed long-distance data transmission tests in November, sending texts and images from space to Earth.

The lunar mission will begin in February 2023, after a month of tests, and will last until December. The mission is to collect data related to lunar resources and search for a lunar landing location.

"It is a historical moment in which Korea showed the world our capabilities in space technology and took a leap forward as one of the seven space powers," said President Yoon Suk-yeol on his Facebook page Wednesday.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]