South Korea to resume Nuri lift off at 6:24 p.m. after fixing issue

South Korea’s homegrown rocket Nuri is erected at the launch pad at Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, on May 25. [Photo by Yonhap]

South Korea’s homegrown rocket Nuri, also known as KSLV-Ⅱ, will lift off at 6:24 p.m. today, exactly one day after the original launch time. The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Aerospace Exploration Agency said they made the decision at a launch management committee meeting at 11 a.m. after receiving reports on the results of inspections and measures for the launch preparation automatic control system and the launch pad equipment control system.

On Wednesday, the launch was called off after a problem was discovered in the ground helium supply system that prevented the depressurization valve, which lowers the pressure, from being operated, and researchers at Hangwuyeon began investigating the cause.

“While researchers were testing and checking the control program overnight, they found that the commands were not transmitted sequentially in a device called the launch pad helium tank PLC, so they modified the control program,” said Oh Tae-seok, deputy minister of science, in a briefing. “Through repeated tests, they finally confirmed that it operated stably,” he said.

The researchers found that the commands in the control program collided during transmission, so they widened the gap between commands to avoid this. After solving the problem, researchers conducted six repeated tests at 5 a.m. and confirmed that the system worked stably.