‘NURI’ SOON TO LAUNCH INTO SPACE

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Korea's first homegrown space launch vehicle Nuri is to be launched into space on October 21. It took 12 years and cost 2 trillion won in government funds to develop the rocket. Here's more on the feat and its meaning for the Korean economy.

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The first launch of the Naro-1 was a painful fiasco. About half a year later, the development of the Nuri space launch vehicle was started. Unlike the Naro, which was developed using Russian space technology, this time Korea wanted to develop its own rocket and launch pad using only domestic technology.

[Soundbite] Yong Hong-taek(Vice Minister of Science and ICT) : "Acquiring strategic space technologies from overseas is not easy. Other countries don't share them."

The odds of a successful first launch of a homegrown rocket is just 30 percent. But that did not stop Korean researchers. Korea can no longer afford to pay astronomical costs to other countries for launching its satellites.

[Soundbite] Yong Hong-taek(Vice Minister of Science and ICT) : "We launch more than 100 satellites over ten years. If we don't have our own launch pad, we have to borrow them from other countries."

The Nuri consists of some 370,000 components. They were manufactured by more than 300 domestic firms and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. They have succeeded in developing a medium-sized liquid engine, a technology possessed only by six other countries in the world, as well as a launch pad pipe that can withstand 400 times the atmospheric pressure and a propellant tank as thin as a beer can.

[Soundbite] Cho Shi-yun(Korea Development Bank) : "The use of these technologies can help Korea create more jobs and increase public welfare. The symbolic meaning of the Nuri is enormous."

Experts say the economic effect of developing our own space capability is as high as eight times the invested amount. Korea's first homegrown space launch vehicle is to blast off into space on October 21 from the Naro Space Center in Goheung.