SpaceX Falcon 9 Launched Korean Danuri
Danuri, or Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) is launched by SpaceX Falcon 9 at 7:08 p.m. ET on 4th August 2022 Thursday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Danuri is derived from two Korean words, dal means moon and nurida means enjoy.
NASA provide Danuri with highly sensitive camera namely ShadowCam on their mission to explore lunar resources such as water ice, uranium, helium-3, silicon, and aluminium, and produce a topographic map to help select future lunar landing sites.
South Korea aims to put a robotic lander on the moon by 2030, and to launch a asteroid sample-return mission further into the future.
Lee Sang-ryool, head of the Korea Aerospace Research Institue say “this is a very significant milestone in the history of Korea space exploration.”
He added that “Danuri is just the begining, and if we are more determined and committed to technology development for space travel, we will be able to reach Mars, asteroids, and so on in the near future。“
The construction of Danuri took 7 years and its success shall pave the way for the Korean next goal to land on the Moon by 2030.
SpaceX also announced on twitter on success of KPLO deployment.
