South Korea to launch its maiden Moon mission aboard SpaceX rocket on August 5

South Korea will officially enter the race to the Moon with the launch of its Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) on August 5. The orbiter will launch from NASA's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which is targeted for liftoff at 4:38 am IST (7:08 p.m. EDT on August 4).

In the latest stage of mission preparation, the spacecraft was fuelled with hydrazine at SpaceX’s payload processing facility. This fuel will be used by the orbiter to carry out manoeuvres into a low-altitude lunar orbit for image-taking and scientific observations.

(KPLO in South Korea before being shipped to Florida; Image: KARI)

About the pathfinder mission

As the name suggests, the 678-kilogram spacecraft would mark the entry of South Korea into the race of lunar exploration. “The basic idea of this mission is technological development and demonstration,” Eunhyeuk Kim from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) said as per a report by Spaceflight Now. “Also, using the science instruments, we are hoping to get some useful data on the lunar surface.”

Informally named Danuri, meaning “enjoy the moon", the mission involves six instruments and technology demonstration payloads that will be tested in the lunar orbit. Built at a cost of $180 million, the orbiter will be propelled toward the first Lagrange point (L1), a location four times farther than the Moon before it is pulled back and installed into the lunar orbit on December 16.

After its entry into orbit, the missions teams would begin the commissioning and the operations of the targeted year-long mission would begin in early February. From the lunar orbit, the orbiter would peer inside dark craters near the Moon's poles using the ShadowCam. NASA is also a contributor to the KPLO mission as it will provide support through its Deep Space Network (DSN), an array of three massive radio telescopes used to communicate with a probe in space.

The Deep Space Network's antennas are located in US' California, Spain's Madrid and Australia's Canberra which allows scientists to communicate with the spacecraft irrespective of its position with the Earth. 

As for the KPLO mission, it has been in the works since 2016. Originally scheduled for launch in 2020, the mission was delayed by two years as the spacecraft surpassed its launch weight.

Image: SpaceX