Korea makes breakthrough in the race to conquer space

South Korea recently became the 10th country to participate in the US Artemis project to conquer space and put people on the Moon.
Project Artemis is essentially an Agreement with 10 participating countries including the US that sets out principles for responsible lunar exploration. The accord takes its name from NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to establish a sustainable human presence on and around the Moon by the late 2020s.

Conquer the universe. Photo: Space News. The Korean Ministry of Science, Information Technology and Communication hopes that by becoming the 10th member country of the Agreement, Seoul will further expand cooperation in the field of space with Washington, participating in various fields. the Artemis space exploration program. Accordingly, about 10 years later, Korea will have development steps in space technology on par with the previous potential country. The impetus for Korea to accelerate in the space race Compared to the space powers, Korea has a late start, but the development has positive and rapid results. After the launch of Naro rocket weighing 140 tons and failed in 2013, in 2016 South Korea carried out a Project to develop a spacecraft to explore the Moon worth more than 197.8 billion won (more than 166 million USD). ). As planned, this probe will be equipped with a series of cameras, sensors and spectrometers to collect data on the Moon as well as conduct space connectivity tests. At the beginning of this year, South Korea decided to invest 615 billion won (about 549 million USD) in space projects this year, including plans to launch the first rocket built and developed by the country. new satellites. Accordingly, South Korea also plans to launch a new 200-ton Nuri rocket later this year while a second launch, carrying a satellite, is scheduled for May 2022. In addition, the country will invest 322.6 billion won in projects to develop technology and services for new satellites, and plan to launch a new generation of medium-sized observation satellites next March in Kazakhstan. and is developing a new geostationary communication satellite to put into Earth orbit. Along with participating in the common playing field, Korea’s first lunar orbiter (KPLO – Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter) scheduled to launch in August 2022 has also been developed in cooperation with NASA. In addition, ShadowCam, a device that can overcome visibility limitations to record images in dark areas on the Moon will be installed on this orbiter. ShadowCam is expected to return to the moon’s unlit areas to find potential landing points for the Artemis program. With this event, Korea has gradually developed domestic space technology, combined with the cooperation of other space powers in the world, will gradually occupy an important position in the field of space development. Generally speaking. With this participation, South Korea looks forward to setting a goal of sending its own spacecraft to the Moon by 2030. Accordingly, the country actively promotes challenging space exploration projects, by develop its own launch vehicle and by 2030 can achieve its dream of landing on the Moon. This first step will provide a solid foundation for Korea to conquer space. Korea wants to strengthen national security through this race? Over the centuries, we have witnessed many wars on land and at sea, and those wars have proved the strength of the victors and as well as the lesson of ensuring the safety of the nation, nation. And recently, we have heard and seen the so-called “ocean wars”, meaning the wars in the sea have also begun. As for outer space, decades ago, great powers in this field such as Russia and the United States developed it. And this same nation has also had competition in the conquest of space. The fact that Washington is conducting a manned lunar exploration program, a program to send astronauts to the Moon 50 years after the Apollo project in the 1970s is a sign that the US clearly has a great advantage in this field. race presence on Mars. However, experts say, so far, no country has been confident that it can send people to this planet located 225 million km from Earth. In the context of the race that has shown signs of heating in recent years, and with many worries that the Earth is becoming more and more crowded with humans, Russia and the US are both showing their ambition to soon bring humans to live. on the Red Planet and marks its sovereignty over space entities, including the Moon. From that perspective, the US wants to take action so that space activities can be transparent, preventing disputes over space activities. South Korea cannot stay out of this competition as an ally of the United States. South Korea has begun a feasibility study for a mission to discover the near-Earth asteroid – Apophis. This ensures competitiveness, but is also a first step to position the country on another planet with life in the future.