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Korea’s successful rocket launch means that now the nation has the chance to develop its space program. And the latest liftoff includes a payload consisting of one of the most advanced satellites ever built by Korean scientists and engineers.
Our Paul Yi shows us this latest technology.
Korea’s newest space satellite which escaped Earth’s atmosphere on the back of recently launched Naro rocket may not be the largest, but it certainly makes up for it in technological prowess. At a mere 100 kilograms, standing at a height of 1.5 meters and a width of 1 meter, the Science and Technology Satellite-2C, or ST-SAT-2C, is Seoul’s third developed satellite.The previous two were lost during failed launches of the Naro space program.
The first science satellite had cost an estimated 10.9 million U.S. and took three years to build. Now on it’s third attempt, engineers were able to shave off two years off the production period and lower costs to less than 2 million.
Now, let’s take a closer look inside this masterpiece of space technology. The Langmuir probe, named after Nobel Prize winning physicist Irving Langmuir, is used to precisely measure temperatures and electron density around the satellite. Next, the cosmic radiation sensors and laser reflector accurately detect the movement of the sun, humidity and other space phenomena.
All this data is then analyzed by the on-board navigation system to adjust the reaction wheel for any course correction. However, the most remarkable piece of equipment is the femtosecond laser oscillator, which emits ultra short pulses that have never before been tested in space.
Once the satellites established a stable distance it will be put into an orbit of 300 by 15-hundred kilometers, circling the Earth every 103 minutes or about 14 times a day.Unlike other common communication satellites that use sun-synchronous orbits, the Naro satellite utilizes an ellipsoidal orbit to better fulfill its scientific role.
Currently, the satellite is aimed to take measurements of terrestrial nature but later on is expected to take on other missions that would expand its observations deep into the universe. It’s truly only the beginning for this special satellite among the stars, and big step for Korea’s future space program which just got a lot brighter.
Paul Yi, Airang News
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