Seven Secondary Payload Satellites Selected for Nuri Rocket's 5th Launch Next Year
CubeSats Chosen Through Public Contest to Join Main Payloads
Selected Satellites to Carry Out Key Missions Including Space Weather Monitoring and Urban Observation
Seven secondary payload satellites to be mounted on the Nuri rocket, scheduled for its 5th launch next year, have been selected.
On the 11th, the Korea Aerospace Administration and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute announced the selection of a total of seven satellites, including O&V Space's 'SLEDGE' and Quaternion's 'PERSAT', which aims to analyze marine debris currents around Jeju Island.
The seven secondary payload satellites selected this time were chosen through a public contest held from December 9 last year to the 3rd of last month, targeting industries, research institutions, and government agencies (including local governments), followed by expert evaluations.
The selected secondary payload satellites vary in size, including 3U, 6U, 12U, and 16U, and will be mounted on the Nuri rocket's 5th launch scheduled for next year to perform key missions. U is a unit representing satellite size and refers to the standard size specification of CubeSats. 1U is a size of 10 cm in width, length, and height. A secondary payload satellite measuring 10 cm wide, 10 cm long, and 30 cm high is denoted as '3U'.
The 3U CubeSats selected include O&V Space's 'SLEDGE', which aims to observe the ionosphere using GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) signal data such as GPS; Quaternion's 'PERSAT', which is intended for analyzing marine debris currents around Jeju Island; and Perigee Aerospace's 'COMMAND v1', designed for space weather monitoring and space debris imaging.
The 6U CubeSats selected are the Unmanned Exploration Institute's 'UEL-Y-Sys' for fine dust monitoring and Hancom Inspace's 'Sejong-5', intended for public use through hyperspectral imaging.
The 12U CubeSat selected is Space Lintec's 'BEE-1012', which aims to grow protein pharmaceutical crystals in the space environment, and the 16U CubeSat selected is Daejeon Metropolitan City's 'DaejeonSat-1', intended for observing urban spatial changes in the Daejeon area and verifying space component technologies.
The Nuri rocket's 5th launch will carry a total of 15 satellites: the primary payloads include the microsatellite constellation satellites 2 to 6, the seven CubeSats selected through this contest as secondary payloads, two CubeSats developed by domestic universities (Chosun University, Pusan National University, KAIST) selected through the '2022 CubeSat Competition', and two verification satellites developed by the Aerospace Research Institute to test domestically produced devices and components.
In this contest, one additional CubeSat to be mounted on the Nuri rocket's 4th launch scheduled for the second half of this year was also selected. It is Quaternion's 'PERSAT', aimed at analyzing marine debris currents around Jeju Island. The Nuri rocket's 4th launch will carry the next-generation medium-sized satellite 3 as the primary payload and 12 CubeSats as secondary payloads.
Park Jae-sung, head of the Space Transportation Division at the Korea Aerospace Administration, said, "We will continue to provide opportunities for mounting domestically developed satellites on the Nuri rocket to verify technologies and accumulate experience in the space environment," adding, "We will make every effort to ensure there are no setbacks in preparing for the Nuri rocket's 4th launch and regularly check the readiness of the launch vehicle and the selected satellites for the 5th launch scheduled next year."
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