Space travel: South Korea wants to send its own lunar probe into space

South Korea wants to send its own lunar probe into space for the first time in the country's history.

Space travel: South Korea wants to send its own lunar probe into space

South Korea wants to send its own lunar probe into space for the first time in the country's history. A "Falcon-9" rocket from Elon Musk's private space company SpaceX with the test lunar orbiter "Korea Pathfinder" on board was scheduled to take off from Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome in the US state of Florida on Thursday evening (local time), the South Korean Ministry of Science announced. The project, including the development of an unmanned space vehicle and the construction of a ground station, is the result of cooperation between the Korean State Space Research Institute (Kari) and other institutes in South Korea, as well as the US space agency Nasa.

The orbiter is to orbit the moon and from there collect data from the surface of the earth's satellite. According to Kari, it is designed for six payloads.

South Korea has an ambitious space program. In June, according to its own statements, it had successfully launched satellites for civilian use into orbit with a self-built launch vehicle. The country is also a signatory to NASA's Artemis program, which aims to put humans back on the moon.