S. Korea Postpones Plan To Launch Solid-Fuel Space Rocket Over Safety Concerns

SEOUL, June 30 (Bernama-Yonhap) -- South Korea on Tuesday postponed a plan to launch a solid-fuel space rocket due to safety reasons, the defence ministry said, pushing back what would have been the first launch of a fully assembled four-stage vehicle, Yonhap News Agency reported.

The Mir space rocket was scheduled to lift off at 2 pm from a sea barge off the southern coast of Jeju Island, but the launch plan would be rescheduled.

"The planned launch of the solid-fuel space rocket has been cancelled out of safety concerns as a set of issues was detected during final launch preparations," the ministry said in a message to the media.

"The rescheduled launch plan will be announced at a later date," it said.

If launched, it would have marked the rocket's first test launch in a fully assembled four-stage vehicle after a series of trials conducted in 2022 and 2023 that each evaluated partial three-stage configurations.

The last launch took place in December 2023.

South Korea has been developing the solid-propellant space launch vehicle since 2021 to place small observation and surveillance satellites into a sub-500-kilometre low-Earth orbit.

The programme aims to boost the country's independent spy satellite capabilities to better monitor North Korean threats.

Solid-fuel rockets are simpler in structure than liquid-fuel counterparts and can be stored for years, enabling rapid responses when a launch is required.

The solid-fuel space vehicle programme has run in parallel with the military's spy satellite launch initiative that has successfully put five reconnaissance satellites into orbit atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets as of November last year.

Under the Mir programme, South Korea plans to domestically deploy up to 60 small spy satellites into space by 2030 to complement its cluster of five larger military spy satellites.

It would help create a tighter surveillance network to watch adversary targets and reduce its reliance on US satellite intelligence.

-- BERNAMA-YONHAP