South Korea's Nuri Rocket Is Set for Oct. 7 With 15 Satellites

So basically: South Korea still plans to fly its Nuri rocket on Wednesday, Oct. 7, from the Naro Space Center in Goheung. The Korea AeroSpace Administration chief said on Sept. 30 that prep has had no problems so far. The rocket is carrying 15 satellites.

The payload

Yonhap, citing that Sept. 30 briefing, says the load is five NEONSAT satellites as the main payload and 10 CubeSats as the secondary payload. NEONSAT is the New-space Earth Observation Satellite Constellation for National Safety. These five are part of the country’s first microsatellite constellation launched from home.

Oh Tae-seok, the KASA administrator, said the hard part is putting all 15 into the orbits they are assigned. He also said launching different satellites to different orbits is a skill commercial launch services need.

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute released video on Sept. 30 of the three stages being stacked at Naro. Yonhap said that assembly was filmed Tuesday, Sept. 29.

The window

KASA set the launch day and the clock on Aug. 27, and the Sept. 30 check did not move the day. The window is 12:23 p.m. to 1:23 p.m. Korea time on Oct. 7. In the eastern U.S. that is 11:23 p.m. ET Monday, Oct. 6, through 12:23 a.m. ET Tuesday, Oct. 7. The exact minute is supposed to be picked on launch day. Backup days run Oct. 8 through Oct. 14.

The record so far

Yonhap’s August account of KASA’s history says this is the fifth Nuri flight. The first, in October 2021, did not reach orbit and carried a 1.5 ton dummy satellite. June 2022 put up a performance verification satellite and a 1.3 ton dummy. May 2023 put up a next-generation small satellite and seven cube satellites. November 2025 put up 13 satellites.

My take

The news this week is that the date held. Fifteen satellites on one domestic rocket is the job, and the agency chief is talking about multi-orbit drops, not a single blob of payloads. The window is still an hour wide, and the backup week runs through Oct. 14. Until the minute is called, Oct. 7 is the plan, not the liftoff.