KSLV-II - Korea Space Launch Vehicle-2 - Nuri
Nuri is roughly 47 meters long and weighs 200 tons, with a maximum diameter of 3.3 meters. It is powered by four engines with 75 tons of thrust in the first stage, a single 75-ton-thrust engine in the second stage and an engine with seven tons of thrust in the third stage.
Korea’s space development roadmap, adopted at the end of 2007, included achieving complete technological independence on the main body satellites by 2016, developing a 300 ton-class Korean launch vehicle, or projectile, by 2017, and launching a lunar module in 2025. Plans also provide for active participation in international joint research and development as a full member of the space club.
The space development program includes a 3-step Korean launch vehicle project. The first step (2011~2014) aimed at constructing test facilities and developing a 5~10 ton liquid engine. In step two (2015~2018), Korea will develop a 75 ton liquid engine, which will be the primary engine for the Korean launch vehicle, and test launch this engine.
Korea has already embarked on the development of the 75 ton engine with the core technology for a 30 ton liquid engine, which it acquired in 2006 while manufacturing Naro. In step three (2019~2021), Korea will develop a 300 ton engine by combining four 75 ton engines, and in 2021, attempt to launch a Korean launch vehicle and satellite into space. The government was also planning to accelerate the Korean rocket project to complete it at an earlier date. The successful launch of Naro on January 30 will be a meaningful starting point.
A system design has been conducted of the liquid rocket engine for Korean launch vehicle (KSLV-II, Korea Space Launch Vehicle II). The present turbopump-fed liquid rocket engine of vacuum thrust 76 ton and vacuum specific impulse 297 sec adopts gas generator cycle. The combustion pressure of the regeneratively cooled combustor was 60 bar. The propellant was LOx/kerosene. The engine was started by pyrostarter and the combustor was ignited by TEA (TriEthylAluminium).
South Korea will soon enter the second stage of its program to develop the country’s own space vehicle by 2021, the government said 30 July 2015. The second, three-year stage of the rocket development plan will begin at the start of next month, in which the country will develop a 75-ton thrust engine, according to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Technology.
Following a successful development of a 75-ton thruster, the country will build a 300-ton booster, using four 75-ton thrust engines, which will be capable of sending a 1.5-ton satellite into space. The 300-ton space rocket, named the Korea Space Launch Vehicle 2 (KSLV-II), will be test-fired during the third and final stage of the space program that will commence in April 2018.
The launch of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-2(KSLV-2), also known as “Nuri,” from the Naro Space Center was postponed from February 2021 to October 2021, while a second launch to put a one-and-a-half ton satellite into Earth’s orbit will be pushed back from October 2021 to May 2022. The Ministry of Science and ICT announced the revised dates on 29 December 2020 during a meeting of a presidential committee on space development. The committee decided to change the previous launch dates after taking into account an assessment by an evaluation team comprised of 15 academic and industrial experts. The team concluded that the Nuri’s first launch should take place next October and its second in May 2022 for a better success rate and stable development.
The first stage of the 1.96 trillion-won (US$1.68 billion) program began in March 2010, in which the country successfully built and test-fired a 7-ton thrust engine, the ministry said. “We have achieved our main objectives of developing a 7-ton liquid engine and building an engine test facility under the first development stage, and we can now enter the second stage of the program to develop a 75-ton engine system and build a test launch vehicle,” it said.
South Korea successfully conducted the first combustion test for a 75-ton liquid-fuel engine that will go into the first and second stages of the domestic Korea Space Launch Vehicle-2 (KSLV-2). The Korea Aerospace Research Institute said 04 June 2016 that it conducted the engine test at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, on 03 June 2016.
The KSLV, which aims for liftoff in the years 2019 and 2020, consists of three stages. Four 75-ton engines will be tied up for the bottom stage, over which one 75-ton liquid engine will be placed. One seven-ton liquid engine will be inserted in the third stage.
A combustion test of a 75-ton engine that goes into the Korea Space Launch Vehicle (KSLV)-II was successfully held at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province on 09 June 2016. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) said that it completed assembling a prototype of the first 75-ton liquid fuel engine and conducted a combustion test that lasted 75 seconds. In the previous test, the combustion lasted 30 seconds. The institute will produce a prototype of the second engine by September 2016 and attempt a combustion test lasting 140 seconds. Instability was reported in the combustion of the domestically manufactured engine, which was the key component of the KSLV, but it appears the problem has been resolved through repeated tests.
South Korea was also in the process of securing technology that enables welding the extremely thin propellant tank without alterations. The KARI planned to complete developing the KSLV-II for a test launch by the end of 2017. It also eyes a lunar exploration by 2020. The space launch vehicle will comprise four 75-ton engines, with a first-stage rocket to reach the thrust of around 300 tons.
The test carrier rocket was set to reach the altitude of up to 180 to 220 kilometers and then cruise for about 10 minutes before falling into the waters off the southern coast of South Korea's Jeju Island. The rocket was slated to be test-launched on 25 October 2018 from the Naro Space Center in the country's southwestern county of Goheung. This test launch was for only the second-stage of the Nuri's propulsion, with the first and third-stage engines to be tested starting early in 2019.
The country's second carrier rocket, known as Korea Space Launch Vehicle 2 or Nuri, meaning "the world" in ancient Korean, was a three-stage vehicle developed entirely with homegrown technology using 75 ton thrust engines to launch satellites into the orbit. On 28 November 2018 at 4 p.m. Korea time, the rocket engine was successfully launched from the Naro Space Center in Goheung, Jeollanam-do Province. The rocket flew for about ten minutes. It reached a peak altitude of roughly 200 kilometers after some three hundred seconds into flight before splashing down in international waters off the southeastern coast of Jeju-do Island. According to the Ministry of Science and ICT and Korea Aerospace Research Institute, the engine fully-combusted for one-hundred-fifty-one seconds, eleven seconds longer than what the team considers a successful run.
The stage was nearly twenty-six meters high, three meters wide, and weighed in at fifty-two tons. The engine launch was a trial run for Nuri. Four of the engines will be used in the first stage, and one on the second stage of KSLV-2, as the whole rocket is scheduled to blast off in 2021.
South Korea's final combustion test om 25 March 2021 for the main engine of its first homegrown rocket was deemed a success. The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute said that the third test for the first-stage engines of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-2(KSLV-2), also known as “Nuri,” went smoothly, displaying a stable supply of propellants and combustion. With the test, which also finalized the development of three-stage engines, the agencies will only need to assemble the rocket’s flight model and rehearse before the scheduled launch with a mock payload at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province in October 2021.
The second launch, which will carry an actual satellite weighing one-point-five tons to put it into Earth’s orbit, is set to be made in May 2022. If the launch goes successfully, South Korea will become the world’s seventh country with the technological capacity to build its own space launch vehicles.
South Korea's test launch 21 Octobe 2021 of its first domestically-built rocket ended in failure. According to the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, the launch had been seen as a major step toward jumpstarting the country's space program. The three-stage liquid fuel rocket, called "the Nuri," blasted off at 5:00 pm local time from the Naro Space Center in Goheung county. The liftoff was smooth, and the Center confirmed after 15 minutes that the rocket had successfully deployed its satellite dummy. However, after 30 minutes of monitoring, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said the Nuri rocket had completed all flight sequences but had failed to put the dummy satellite payload into orbit. He cited problems during the final steps.
The failure was a setback for the country's space program. South Korea aims to join the exclusive group of nations capable of launching a domestically-produced satellite of over one-and-a-half tons. "The Nuri" used entirely domestic technologies, from the initial concept to design, production, as well as test and launch operations. President Moon Jae-in recently said the country intends to expand its investment in space technology. The government is seeking an annual space budget of 553 million dollars for 2022, in a bid to nurture the country's nascent domestic space sector.
Officials at the state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute say they plan to carry out five more test launches through 2027.
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