S Korea cites fairing assembly for "half successful" space rocket launch

SEOUL, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- South Korea'a "half successful" launch of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1) last year, its first locally developed space rocket, was caused by problems in the fairing assembly, an independent private panel said Monday.

The investigative panel headed by Lee In, a professor of aerospace engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), said its research showed a structural error in the fairing assembly's separation explosive mechanism, as they concluded it may have been the main cause of the two-stage rocket's failure to launch properly in its first attempt on Aug. 25.

"Our investigations indicate that faulty electrical discharge in the Fairing Separation Driving Unit may have prevented the explosives from going off or it may have been a structural problem that held the fairing in place even after the explosion took place on-time," said the head of the panel.

Lee added they shared the examination results with its Russian partner in the joint rocket project, the Khrunichev State Research, and received no objections to the conclusions they reached.

The panel, with the help of Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), went through 5,200 documents and 30 rounds of comprehensive systems checks to carry out the examination process, Lee said.

The two-stage rocket, also called Naro-1, is the country's first space vehicle to be launched from South Korean soil that could possibly place a 100 kg scientific satellite into Earth's orbit.

KSLV-1 successfully got off from the Naro Space Center south of Seoul on Aug. 25, but the satellite failed to gain enough orbital velocity causing it to crash back to Earth shortly after takeoff.

KARI and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology added they will apply all the findings into their second Naro-1 launch, scheduled to take place in May.