South Korea is set to launch its fourth medium-sized Earth observation satellite using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday. The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) announced that the 500-kilogram satellite will be deployed at 4:10 p.m. Korea time. The satellite has undergone necessary inspections and fuel injection in preparation for the launch aboard the Falcon 9.
Following liftoff, the satellite is expected to detach from the launch vehicle approximately 2 hours and 22 minutes later and establish communication with the ground about 31 minutes after that through the Svalbard ground station in Norway. Equipped with various payloads, including an observation camera capable of capturing images of the entire Korean Peninsula every three days, the satellite is intended for applications such as agriculture, forest management, disaster response, climate change analysis, and public safety enhancement.
Once reaching its designated orbit at an altitude of around 888 kilometers, the satellite will undergo four months of initial in-orbit operations before commencing full-scale missions in the first half of the following year. Additionally, South Korea has outlined plans to develop a low-Earth orbit satellite communications network comprising hundreds of satellites by 2035 and expedite the country’s inaugural lunar landing mission to 2030. This strategy, presented by KASA during a public briefing in Jinju, aims to bolster South Korea’s satellite and launch vehicle development capabilities and establish a local equivalent of SpaceX’s Starlink network.
