Korean poems land on the moon

[Anchor]

A private American unmanned lunar lander has successfully landed on the moon's surface after about 40 days.

This lander has something unique about it.

As part of a project sending artworks to the moon, it carried several poem collections.

This includes eight pieces of Korean sijo poetry.

Park Seok-ho reports.

[Report]

The unmanned lander, traveling at a speed of 6,000 kilometers per hour in lunar orbit, gradually reduces its speed and lowers its altitude.

At 5:36 PM Korean time today, the unmanned lunar lander 'Blue Ghost' landed on the northeastern surface of the moon's front side.

["Vehicle is charging. (Lunar gravity is stable.) We're on the moon."]

Blue Ghost sent back photos of the surrounding volcanic terrain immediately after landing and is expected to transmit a video of the landing process as well.

[Ryan Watkins/NASA researcher: "It's a good location to take measurements of the interior structure with some of our heat flow measurements. It's also free of a lot of rocks..."]

This lander was launched in January and spent over 40 days flying in the Earth-moon orbit before landing on the moon. It will now carry out missions such as satellite navigation and radiation adaptation computer experiments, and soil sampling for the next 14 days.

[A.C. Charania/NASA chief technologist: "Understanding how future human explorers could more efficiently operate on lunar surface..."]

As part of a project sending artworks to the moon, it carried poems collected from around the world, including eight pieces of modern Korean poetry such as 'To the Moon' and 'Dream of a Meteorite.'

[To the Moon/Written by Koo Chung-hwa: "We are looking for a way for humans to live. So we send this letter with the spacecraft."]

It is the second successful lunar landing of the American private unmanned lander since February last year.

NASA has introduced a competitive system for private companies since 2018 to increase the efficiency of lunar exploration.

This is KBS News, Park Seok-ho.