South Korea postponed its rocket launch Wednesday as an order was issued to stop the rocket's liftoff 7 minutes and 56 seconds before the firing.
It was not immediately known why the launch was halted. The South Korean government said that it will announce the reason of the launch delay.
The rocket was scheduled to lift off at 5 p.m. (Seoul Time) following a final review of preparations and weather conditions.
The rocket will be launched from the Naro Space Center (나로우주센터) in Goheung county, Jeollanam-do. The Herald jumped the gun a little bit with their article this evening, "Naro lifts Korea into elite space group":
Korea's first space rocket was set to be launched yesterday with citizens brimming with hope and anticipation that the successful liftoff would bolster efforts to become one of the world's top-tier countries in space technology.
Naro, or the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1, was given the go-ahead to lift off at 5 p.m. at the Naro Space Center, the country's first spaceport in the southern coastal county, located some 485 kilometers south of Seoul.
The successful launch would make South Korea the world's 10th country to send into orbit a satellite of its own making from its own soil.
"With the launch of Naro, we have secured experience and technology in developing a space launch vehicle, the transfer of which is rigidly restricted in the international community," the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said.
"The liftoff will pave the way for developing a fully-indigenous space launch vehicle."
Yonhaps reports the delay is due to a "technical glitch," though a KT commenter---not always the best sources, I know---wonders if North Korea was acting up again.
3 comments:
The Herald jumped the gun a little bit with their article this evening, "Naro lifts Korea into elite space group"
Known in the trade as "writing the lede on the way to the ballpark."
I followed the countdown and was quite disappointed, but for the very first launch people tend to be over cautious. So much is at stake...
I remember the maiden flight of Europe's Ariane. French President Giscard d'Estaing went all the way to Kourou (French Guyana) to attend a launch that was eventually postponed.
Humorists ran the images of the monarch waiting, with an alternative take of the countdown (-3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2...).
Korean authorities were wiser not to make too much a show of it.
I heard an interview on BBC World Service Radio that the South Korean rocket launch was cancelled due to American pressure to appease North Korea. So, the Korea Times reporter is right. However, it seemed that the CIA guy being interviewed hadn't planned on saying what he did since the interviewer did not probe him on it, and the interview was not aired again (usually standard practice).
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