If the orbiter has enough fuel, mission managers could consider an extended mission beginning in 2024, Kim said. A series of propulsive maneuvers with the spacecraft’s thrusters will steer KPLO into a circular low-altitude orbit about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the lunar surface by New Year’s Eve.Īfter a month of commissioning and tests, the spacecraft’s year-long primary science mission should begin around Feb. Gravitational forces will naturally pull the spacecraft back toward the Earth and the moon, where the Korean probe will be captured in orbit Dec. The Falcon 9 propelled the spacecraft on a trajectory that will take it close to the L1 Lagrange point, a gravitationally-stable location nearly a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from the daytime side of the Earth, some four times farther than the moon. KPLO’s arrival date at the moon is fixed on Dec. Instead of reaching the moon in a few days, like NASA’s Apollo missions, KPLO will take about four months to complete the journey. The Falcon 9 rocket launched the KPLO spacecraft toward the moon on a low-energy, fuel-efficient ballistic lunar transfer trajectory, a path being pioneered by NASA’s small CAPSTONE spacecraft, a tech demo mission that launched in June on a Rocket Lab mission and is scheduled to slip into orbit around the moon in November. The mission cost about $180 million to develop. The mission’s scientific objectives include mapping the lunar surface to help select future landing sites, surveying resources like water ice on the moon, and probing the radiation environment near the moon. Credit: Michael Cain / Spaceflight Now / Coldlife Photography The Korea Lunar Pathfinder Orbiter is encapsulated inside the Falcon 9 rocket’s payload fairing, seen here with mission logos. KPLO will test a new South Korean spacecraft platform designed for deep space operations, along with new communication, control, and navigation capabilities, including the validation of an “interplanetary internet” connection using a disruption tolerant network. The mission carries six science instruments and technology demonstration payloads. “Also, using the science instruments, we are hoping to get some useful data on the lunar surface.” “The basic idea of this mission is technological development and demonstration,” said Eunhyeuk Kim, the mission’s project scientist from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. The KPLO mission is also named Danuri, a combination of the words “dal” and “nurida” in Korean, meaning “enjoy the moon.” space agency’s human lunar exploration program. South Korea has also signed up to join the NASA-led Artemis Accords, and could contribute to the U.S. The KPLO mission is a pathfinder, or precursor, for South Korea’s future ambitions in space exploration, which include a robotic landing on the moon in the early 2030s. The Thor Delta G rocket launched a recoverable spacecraft called Biosatellite 2 with a host of biological research experiments, and the Atlas Centaur sent NASA’s Surveyor 5 lander to the moon.Ī moon mission made up the second half of Thursday’s doubleheader, too. 7 and 8, 1967, when a Thor Delta G rocket and an Atlas Centaur rocket launched less than 10 hours apart. The last time there was such a short span between two orbital-class rockets lifting off from Cape Canaveral was on Sept. EDT (1029 GMT) from pad 41, located about a mile-and-a-half (2.5 kilometers) north of SpaceX’s launch complex. military missile warning satellite at 6:29 a.m. The launch of the Falcon 9 rocket Thursday evening occurred 12 hours and 39 minutes after the liftoff of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket with a U.S. The rocket’s first stage landed on SpaceX’s drone ship “Just Read the Instructions” parked downrange in the Atlantic Ocean east of Cape Canaveral. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral with the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, a 1,495-pound (678-kilogram) spacecraft the size of a large refrigerator that will collect data on lunar geology and search for evidence of water ice hidden in craters at the moon’s poles. The launch was the second of the day from Florida’s Space Coast, marking the shortest turnaround between launches at Cape Canaveral since 1967. EDT (2308 GMT) Thursday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. South Korea’s first mission to the moon lifted off at 7:08 p.m.
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