‘DANURI’ BEGINS TO ENTER LUNAR ORBIT

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After a long 135-day journey, Korea's first pathfinder lunar orbiter Danuri, launched into space on August 5th successfully entered the lunar orbit without any glitches. Making the announcement on Monday, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute said Danuri has now become a true lunar orbiter. Danuri will undergo four more rounds of lunar orbit insertion (LOI) maneuvers in the coming days to achieve a lunar orbit altitude of 100 kilometers.

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Korea's first pathfinder lunar orbiter Danuri, launched into space on August 5. After a 135-day journey of going around six million kilometers to save fuel, it finally began entering lunar orbit on Saturday. Danuri is now poised to enter lunar orbit, which moves at 3,600 kilometers an hour. A thruster inside the orbiter decelerated from 8,000 kilometers per hour to 7,500 kilometers per hour in 13 minutes. Even a slight error can result in pushing Danuri out into space or causing it to crash into the Moon. But an analysis of orbit data has shown that Danuri has entered lunar orbit without any glitches.

[Soundbite] Cho Young-ho(Korea Aerospace Research Institute) : "If it fails to reduce speed, it may escape the Moon's gravity and end up far away from the Moon."

Danuri is currently orbiting the Moon in an elliptical trajectory at a 12-hour interval as close as 109 kilometers and as far as 8,920 km away from the lunar surface. The lunar probe will carry out its mission 100 km over the Moon. After four more lunar orbit insertion maneuvers, it will approach the mission orbit. Around Dec. 29 it will be clear if it has successfully settled down.

[Soundbite] Kim Dae-kwan(Korea Aerospace Research Institute) : "It's the first step toward deep space through lunar exploration. We are investing in that goal to make sure everything works out."

On its way to the Moon, Danuri sent the images of the Moon's rotation and a BTS music video uploaded to its memory to Earth. Once it settles down in mission orbit, Danuri will transmit lunar exploration data to Earth from February.