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August 22, 2013
South Korea’s Arirang-5 satellite was launched on Thursday atop a Russian Dnepr rocket. The launch took place at 14:39 UTC (20:39 local time) from Site 370/13 at the Dombarovsky launch site near Russia’s border with Kazakhstan.
Russian Dnepr rocket launch
Arirang-5, or KOMPSat-5, is the fourth satellite in South Korea’s Arirang program. Arirang is also known as the Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite, or KOMPSAT, program.
Arirang-5 is a radar imaging satellite, the first to be developed and operated by South Korea. Developed by KARI, with participation from the South Korean aerospace industry, Arirang-5 is based around the satellite bus developed for Arirang-2.
Russian Dnepr rocket description
It has a fuelled mass of approximately 1,400 kilograms (3,100 lb), and is expected to function for at least five years. The spacecraft will be powered by a pair of deployable solar arrays, generating upwards of 1,400 watts. These will charge lithium ion batteries, with a capacity of around 100 amp-hours.
KOMPSat-5 spacecraft
Data will be relayed to the ground via an x-band downlink, providing a data rate in the region of 310 megabits per second. A lower data-rate s-band transceiver will be used to relay telemetry and commands between the satellite and its ground stations.
Thursday’s launch was the first Dnepr launch in two years. The next launch is scheduled for November, carrying DubaiSat-2 and twenty six secondary payloads.
For more information about Korean Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), visit: http://www.kari.re.kr
Images, Text, Credits: ROSCOSMOS / KARI.
Cheers, Orbiter.ch
