This morning’s news reports indicate that, once again, South Korea has failed to put a satellite into orbit. Some might wonder why we discuss this issue on ACW. However, it makes a very interesting case study for how countries acquire missile technology. And failures are much more interesting that successes! Stay tuned!
UPDATE (6:13 PM 10 June 2010) The BBC is reporting that the KSLV-1 blew up something like 2 minutes after launch and that there is video of it. Gotta get me a copy of that!
Rwendland | June 10, 2010
Science Minister Ahn Byong-man says it would have been at an altitude of about 70 km when the first stage failed at 137 seconds.
I remember reading a report the trajectory is over Japan, similar to NK launches. I wonder if Japan will get publicly upset with this one?
Geoff Forden | June 10, 2010
I neglected to put a link to some of my past posts about the KSLV. Here is one that talks about the overflight issue.
Tal Inbar | June 10, 2010
What is the strange “bow” OF THE slv? it was similar MANEUVER as was observed on the 2009 launch.
chad | June 10, 2010
I wonder how long until KCNA draw attention to the double standards associated with ROKS’s attempt today and their Unha launch last year.
Also interesting that the DPRK is more seemingly a bit more successful in these matters.
Azr@el | June 10, 2010
*“Also interesting that the DPRK is more seemingly a bit more successful in these matters.”*
I think that is too strong a statement in light of the numerous catastrophes that have struck the DPRK’s program. I think it more appropriate to say that the two Koreas dip from the the same kimchi tofu hot pot of luck when it comes to space shots.
Josh | June 10, 2010
The video seems to stutter a lot, but it’s on YouTube, right here.
Murray Anderson | June 11, 2010
Here’s a short video of the failure at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC8UsaoJO64&feature=player_embedded.
I got the link from http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=21079.msg604112#msg604112.
There seem to be explosions at 132, 134, and 137 seconds.
Josh | June 11, 2010
For whatever reason, I can’t get the above video to play all the way through to the failure, and am wondering if anyone else is having better luck.
On a related note, here’s a nice animation of last year’s space launch, visually explaining the cause and nature of the failure. It also shows a ground track south of the main Japanese islands, passing instead over the Ryukyu chain.
Josh | June 11, 2010
And here’s a working video of the failure of the second KSLV launch, as seen on TV.
Murray Anderson | June 11, 2010
Correction to my preceding post:
The times should be 1 minute 32 seconds and so on; thus 92, 94, and 97 seconds. I was fooled by the similarity of 1: 37 sec to 137 sec, the reported failure time (and was being careless).
There does seem to be something going wrong though.