S. Korean satellite lost shortly after launch: gov't

By Lee Joon-seung

NARO SPACE CENTER, South Korea, Aug. 26 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean satellite carried by a rocket launched earlier this week was lost shortly after blastoff due to problems in the fairing assembly system, the government said Wednesday.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said that while the first and
second stage rockets of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1) separated as
planned after liftoff from the Naro Space Center at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, one of the
two fairings covering the satellite did not fall off properly.
Only one fairing was ejected 216 seconds after launch with the remaining section
remaining in place until the Science and Technology Satellite-2 (STSAT-2)
separated from the second stage rocket 540 seconds into the flight, the ministry
in charge of the country's science and technology policies said.
"The fairings weigh 300kg or three times more than the scientific satellite,
making it effectively impossible for the second stage rocket to generate the
necessary thrust to keep the satellite in orbit," said Vice Science and
Technology Minister Kim Jung-hyun.
He added that the extra weight also affected stabilization and navigational
control that caused the rocket and payload to "tumble" and steer upwards, instead
of following a trajectory roughly parallel to the Earth.
The second stage rocket and the satellite reached an altitude of 327km before
they separated, slightly higher than the 302km planned, with the latter climbing
to a further height of 387km 11 minutes after takeoff.
"After reaching this height, the satellite fell to Earth and was probably
destroyed as it re-entered the atmosphere," Kim said, adding it may be impossible
to find any remnants of the 100kg satellite.
He added that the STSAT-2's speed before falling to earth was estimated at 6.2km
per second, which is much slower than the 8km per second needed to keep an object
in orbit. South Korea has officially called off all efforts to search for the
satellite.
Related to the exact cause of the mishap, the senior official said that talks are
underway with Russian engineers who provided technical assistance for the entire
program.
He, however, said that South Korea was responsible for building the fairing
systems and the second-stage rocket, while Russia was in charge of the main,
first-stage rocket that did not experience any problems.
South Korea, with no experience in building space rockets, worked with Russia to
build the KSLV-1 and send the STSAT-2 into space.
The ministry said that it planned to carefully check the cause of the nose
fairing failure so such an incident does not occur again when a second KSLV-1 is
launched next May.
Work on the scientific satellite began in October 2002 and cost 13.6 billion won
(US$10.8 million). The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), Korea Advanced
Institute of Science and Technology and Gwangju Institute of Science and
Technology took part in the construction.
Related to the loss of the satellite, the state-run KARI in overall charge of
South Korea's space exploration efforts said it had still photos taken from the
second stage rocket during the ascent stage that clearly showed a fairing
connected to the second stage rocket.
"It is likely that the satellite which ejected from rocket hit the fairing and
caused it to fall off at last," said Park Jeong-joo, head of the institutes's
KSLV Systems Office. He speculated that the shock of the collision damaged the
satellite.
The government, meanwhile, said that it has received information through
diplomatic channels that an unidentified object that could be the remnants of a
rocket has been found near Darwin, Australia.
It said the exact identify of the object is not known but it could be part of the
nozzle of the the second stage rocket that is made from a special carbon material
designed to withstand extreme heat.