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Further Reading

Lunar Probes

South Korea announced an ambitious plan on November 20, 2007 to join Asia's space race by launching a lunar orbiter by 2020 and sending a probe to the moon five years after that. The science minister unveiled the project one month after China launched its first lunar orbiter and two months after Japan did. According to the "road map to the implementation of space development," developing its own 300-ton rocket is projected to require KRW 3.6 trillion (USD 3.9 billion) over the next decade. "South Korea will send a probe into lunar orbit by 2020 and another to the surface of the moon by 2025 under the road map," a ministry spokesperson said.

The KSLV-II (Korea Space Launch Vehicle), which by one report weighs about 300 tons, will be ready by 2017 to fulfill the mission, while a smaller 130-ton KSLV-I will be launched in 2009. South Korea outlined plans to launch a large satellite weighing some 100 kilograms every three or four years, and to launch about two smaller satellites on an annual basis. South Korea is scheduled to open the Naro Space Center, the first of its kind in the nation, in the southern region of the peninsula next year.

At that time the first South Korean astronaut boarded Russia's Soyuz craft in April 2008 and stayed in space for eight days aboard the International Space Station. In the past decade, Seoul has spent about KRW 1.7 trillion on its space program.

Japan sent its Kaguya probe into lunar orbit in September 2007. Japan's space agency says sending the USD 478 million lunar probe was the most costly project since the US Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s. China launched its first lunar orbiter, Chang'e 1, in October. It became the world's third country after the Soviet Union and the United States to successfully complete a manned space mission in 2003 by putting astronaut Yang Liwei into space. Its third manned space flight is scheduled for late 2008 with three astronauts aboard going on China's first-ever spacewalk.