South Korea’s largest satellite launched on Nuri rocket in ambitious space mission

The Nuri rocket lifts off from a launch pad at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Korea, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025. (Kim Sung-min/Yonhap via AP)

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea launched its largest satellite yet on its nationally developed space rocket early Thursday, the fourth of six planned launches through 2027.

The three-stage Nuri rocket lifted off from the country’s spaceport on an island off the southwestern coastal county of Goheung. Aerospace officials said the rocket placed a 516-kilogram (1,137-pound) science satellite and 12 microsatellites into a target orbit about 600 kilometres (372 miles) above Earth.

The Korea Aerospace Administration said the main satellite made successful contact with a South Korean ground station in Antarctica about 40 minutes after liftoff at 1:55 a.m., confirming that it was functioning normally, including the deployment of its solar panels. The 12 microsatellites will contact ground stations sequentially according to each device’s communication schedule.

Kyunghoon Bae, the country’s science minister, declared the launch a success and said it reaffirms that South Korea has acquired independent space launch and transport capability.

He said the launch represents a “turning point” for the country’s space industry, as it marked the first time a private company — Hanwha Aerospace — assembled the rocket under a technology transfer from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, the national space agency.

“Building on today’s success, we will steadfastly pursue the development of next-generation launch vehicles, lunar exploration and deep-space missions,” Bae said.

The main satellite launched Thursday is equipped with a wide-range airglow camera to observe auroral activity and separate systems for measuring plasma and magnetic fields and for testing how life-science experiments perform in space.

The dozen smaller “cube” satellites, developed by university teams and research institutions, include GPS systems to study Earth’s atmosphere, infrared cameras to track plastic in the oceans, and systems for testing solar cells or communication equipment.

Thursday’s event was the country’s first launch involving a Nuri rocket since May 2023, when it successfully placed a 180-kilogram (397-pound) observation satellite into orbit, and the fourth overall since its first attempt in October 2021, which failed to deliver a dummy device.

Further launches are planned in 2026 and 2027 as part of a multiyear project to advance the country’s space technologies and industries, and to reduce the gap with leading Asian space powers, such as China, Japan and India.

Nuri is a three-stage rocket powered by five 75-ton-class engines in its first and second stages and a 7-ton-class engine in its third stage, which releases the payloads at the desired altitude. It’s the country’s first space launch vehicle built primarily with domestic technology, a core asset for a nation that had largely relied on other countries to launch its satellites since the 1990s.

The Naro Space Center, South Korea’s lone spaceport, saw its first successful launch in 2013 with a two-stage rocket built with Russian technology, following years of delays and repeated failures. The rocket reached its target altitude during its first test in 2009 but failed to deploy a satellite, and then exploded shortly after liftoff during its second test in 2010.

Kim Tong-hyung, The Associated Press