CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida –
South Korea joined the stampede to the moon on Thursday with the launch of a lunar orbiter that will explore future landing sites.
The satellite launched by SpaceX is taking a long detour to save fuel and will arrive in December.
If successful, it will join US and Indian spacecraft already operating around the moon, and a Chinese rover exploring the far side of the moon.
India, Russia and Japan all have new moon missions due to launch later this year or next, as do a host of private companies in the US and elsewhere. And NASA is next with the debut of its lunar megarocket in late August.
South Korea’s $180 million mission, the country’s first step in lunar exploration, features a square, solar-powered satellite designed to fly just 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the lunar surface. Scientists hope to collect geological and other data for at least a year from this low polar orbit.
It is South Korea’s second chance in space in six weeks.
In June, South Korea successfully launched a package of satellites into Earth orbit for the first time using its own rocket. The first attempt failed last fall, and the test satellite was unable to reach orbit.
And in May, South Korea joined a NASA-led coalition to explore the Moon with astronauts for years and decades to come. NASA is targeting the end of this month for the first launch in its Artemis program. The goal is to send an empty crew capsule around the moon and back to test systems before a crew comes aboard in two years.
Danuri, Korean for “enjoy the moon,” carries six scientific instruments, including a camera for NASA. It is designed to observe the permanently shadowed, ice-filled craters at the lunar poles. NASA favors the lunar South Pole for future astronaut positions due to evidence of frozen water.
South Korea plans to land its own spacecraft on the moon, a robotic probe, by 2030 or so.
“Danuri is just the beginning,” Sang-Ryool Lee, president of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, said in SpaceX’s launch webcast.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Danuri lifted off from Cape Canaveral around sunset. The first-stage booster, making its sixth flight, landed on an ocean platform several minutes later for later recycling.
It was the third space launch of the day from the US.
United Launch Alliance kicked off at dawn in Florida, launching an Atlas V rocket with an infrared missile detection satellite for the US Space Force. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket company then sent six passengers on a journey fast into space from West Texas.
Around the world, the company Rocket Lab launched a small classified satellite from New Zealand for the US National Reconnaissance Office.
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