Posted on 06/21/2022 6:39:13 AM PDT by BenLurkin
South Korea successfully launched satellites into orbit with its homegrown Nuri rocket on Tuesday, a significant step for the country’s burgeoning space program after a failed attempt last year.
The three-stage rocket, more than 47 meters (154 feet) long and weighing 200 tons, was launched from the Naro Space Center in the country’s southern coastal region at 4 p.m. local time.
It was topped with five satellites that will carry out Earth observation missions, such as monitoring the atmosphere, for up to two years, as well as a 1.3-ton dummy satellite, according to the country’s Science Ministry.
“The road from South Korea to space has opened now,” said President Yoon Suk Yeol after the launch. “It’s the fruit of the difficult challenges of the past 30 years. Now, our Korean people and our young people’s dream and hope will reach toward space.”
Prior to South Korea’s mission on Tuesday, only Russia, the United States, the European Union, China, Japan and India had developed a space launch vehicle capable of carrying a satellite weighing more than 1 ton, according to the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI).
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
And just like that S.Korea just demonstrated ICBM and MIRV technology. Good on them. We should ask them to have Hyundai Heavy put nuclear reactors on floating offshore platforms like they already build for the oil industry. Big suckers 2000 megawatts each with desalination trains running off the low pressure turbine exhaust. Run a flexible HDPE pipe and triple phase HVAC along the seafloor to shore. Park a dozen off the California coast and three or four off Texas. Power grid solved and that pesky drought too. Every acre foot delivered to L.A.and San Diego is one less California can take from Lake Mead no need for pipelines over the mountains just stop.California from taking the water in the first place.
The Central Valley in California is getting dry. They need the water even if environmentalists would throw a fit about nuclear reactors.
This is what the Russians wanted to offer after the fall of the Soviet Union. They would park a nuclear powered old warship off shore and use the reactor to provide cheap electricity to places without reliable electricity. I don’t know if anyone took them up on the offer.
One ton? What a strange, narrow way to discuss rocketry and space launches.
It's not like the Norks will only launch rockets capable to lifting nukes that weight over 2,000 lbs.
And the Iranians, the Israelis and others to come.
The Russians went one better they have two floating nuclear plants and orders for 70 more. The active plants are based on ice breaker and submarine reactors. Samsung heavy and Seaborg are building floating plants that will be molten salt fueled with a meltdown proof core since the whole core is already melted if it spills it goes subcritical and hardens into solid rocksalt that is not all that water soluble. They intend to use fluoride salts and a sodium hydroxide moderator in an epithermal spectrum with those salts they could also go fast spectrum and go to breed and burn fuel cycles. As of right now Samsung intends to have a 12 year fuel cycle using HALEU with the option of using LWR spent fuel actinides as the fissile materials going fully closed cycle breeding with fast spectrum or just break even with epithermal spectrum. Neither requires a breed blanket, the fluoride salts already are the right form to do online fuel processing or batch centralized processing.
“And just like that S.Korea just demonstrated ICBM and MIRV technology.”
Only if you want to launch a first strike at a distant target. Liquid fueled ICBMs have been obsolete for decades.
Nuri is a three-stage launch vehicle. The first stage booster uses four KRE-075 SL engines generating 266.4 tons of thrust with a specific impulse of 289.1 seconds. The second stage booster uses a single KRE-075 Vacuum engine, which has a wider nozzle for increased efficiency in vacuum with a specific impulse of 315.4 seconds. The third stage booster uses one KRE-007 engine with a specific impulse of 325.1 seconds. Both engine models use Jet A as fuel and liquid oxygen (LOX) as oxidizer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuri_(rocket)
You bring up a good point. The central Valley and imperial Valley are two of the largest water users in California they dwarf L.A. And San Diego. Urban use is only 10% of water use in California. Agricultural is 40% nuclear desal is the only thermal power source cheap enough be used for bulk irrigation. The Israelis have desal on drip, hydroponic, and flim strip irrigation but they recycle urban waste water into irrigation not direct use as it’s still to costly for direct use. Nuclear heat on a btu for btu basis is equal to 50 cents per bbl oil or coal under $10 a tonne delivered not at the mine gate.
That’s not the point. The booster is only a small part of ICBM and mirv the real technology is in the post boost vehicle and the guidance systems. Given that they just dropped off four sats in precision orbits shows they have post boost vehicle technology in operational capacity. Also given that the S.Koreans don’t have a global communications and tracking network they had to have onboard gyros, star trackers, and an IMU to stage and inject those four birds that is exactly the same tech used for MIRV. The rocket they launched that tech in may have been liquid fueled but solid rocket tech is easy compared to post boost vehicle technology. PBV also require storable liquid fuels and precision ACS thrusters and OMS bi propellant engines both are critical to MIRV. The Russians still field liquid ICBMs their giant SS18 NATO code Satan II is liquid fueled as is it’s replacement being fielded as we speak with the capability to carry 30+ warheads over a foot print the size of Texas. Truly a beast of a missile.
1.3-ton dummy satellite = “Don’t look at our spy eye.”
I misread that as North Korea at first, and had a short private panic.
South Korea is good. The more potential inbounds on Three Gorges Dam, the more China will behave itself.
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