According to a VNA journalist in Korea, a small Korean satellite (Cubesat) will be launched on the Artemis II spacecraft as part of the lunar Exploration Mission Habitée de la National Aeronautics and space Administration (NASA). It will therefore be the first time that a Korean satellite will have participated in the Artemis program.
The Korean Aerospace Administration (KASA) said on May 9 that KASA had signed a deployment agreement with NASA to place a Korean cubesat, named “K-Radcube”, on the Artemis II spaceship. Under the agreement, NASA will support the integration of satellites in Artemis II. Kasa plans to complete the development and certification of satellite theft by next July and put it back to NASA for integration.
Kasa, who develops a lunar landing whose launch is scheduled in 2033, hopes that the deployment of the satellite will lead to closer cooperation with NASA, including the possibility of a joint development of technologies and lunar landing systems for inhabited exploration missions.
Artemis II aims to send four astronauts around the moon and bring them back to earth. The K-Radcube will fly on board and monitor the spatial radiation environment.
Artemis is the first American lunar exploration program inhabited for over 50 years, since the Apollo missions.
Named after the Greek goddess of the Moon and the “twin sister” of Apollo, the exploration program has become more and more complex in each phase. Artemis I, launched in 2022, transported models equipped with sensors in lunar orbit and returned safely. Artemis III, planned for after 2027, will seek to send humans to the southern Pole of the Moon for the first time.
K-Radcube is a 19-kilograms cubic satellite (41 pounds) which will revolve around the earth on a very elliptical orbit, ranging from 100 to 200 km to its nearest point and up to 70,000 km at its highest point. The mission is designed to monitor radiation in the belts of Van Allen of the Earth and assess the impact on astronauts, as well as the performance of semiconductor memory fleas in space.
The satellite will be installed in the Orion floor transfer unit, a component that connects the NASA spatial launch system (SLS) to the habited oron spacecraft.
The satellite will be deployed at an altitude of around 36,000 km, will begin to deploy its solar panels two hours after the launch and will begin to control the attitude of the device in the space. Once stabilized, K-Radcube will carry out radiation measures for approximately 28 hours, with the possibility of extending the mission up to two weeks depending on the satellite conditions.
“The scientific data collected by the satellite will be shared with researchers and should play an important role in the future international exploration of distant space,” said Kang Kyung in, head of the KASA space science exploration division.
NASA initially proposed in October 2023 to embark cubesats of program partners aboard the Artemis II. South Korea has expressed its intention to participate and the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies (MSIT) began the preparations for the mission. However, the budget of around 7 billion won ($ 5 million) was not adopted by the National Assembly, forcing South Korea to withdraw and arousing public criticism for having missed the opportunity to send a satellite near the Moon.
The project was relaunched after postponing the launch of Artemis II, giving South Korea a new chance of participating in the space program.
Source : https://www.vietnamplus.vn/ve-tinh-han-quoc-lan-dau-tham-gia-su-menh-cua-nasa-tren-mat-trang-post1037627.vnp
