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| Image Credit: SpaceX |
South Korea is on its way to the moon.
The country launched its first-ever lunar mission — in fact, its first-ever trip beyond low Earth orbit — last night. Formerly known as the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), the mission is currently known as Danuri, a play on the Korean terms for "moon" and "enjoy." It is administered by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI). Its major purpose is to test South Korea's lunar spacecraft technology before attempting to land on the surface, which is expected to happen in 2030 if all goes well.
Danuri lifted out on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:08 p.m. EDT on August 4. The rocket's booster landed successfully a few minutes later on the drone ship "Just Read the Instructions."
The spaceship is now on a tortuous path to the moon. It will first sail toward the sun before returning to its target in mid-December, arriving in lunar orbit. This longer method, known as a ballistic lunar transfer, leverages the sun's pull to make the travel more fuel-efficient.
When Danuri arrives at the moon, it will conduct research with six science instruments: a magnetometer, a gamma-ray spectrometer, an experimental communications system, and three cameras, one of which is sensitive enough to see inside the moon's permanently shadowed craters, which could contain water ice.
If the mission is successful, South Korea will join the United States, the former Soviet Union, China, Japan, India, Luxembourg, and the European Union as the eighth political organization to conduct a lunar mission. The majority of those missions were flybys and orbiters, with only six human landings and a handful of robotic landings.
The moon has had a busy year. NASA's CAPSTONE mission was recently launched, and its Artemis I mission is scheduled to launch later this month. Russia will return to the moon for the first time since 1976 with the Luna-25 lander, which is set to launch late this year. In addition, numerous private organizations are headed to the moon, including American businesses Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines, which will fly under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, and Japanese company ispace, which will carry a United Arab Emirates-built rover.