South Korea on Wednesday refuted Russia's claim that the two sides have not reached any decision on a third space rocket launch after their second attempt to send a rocket into space failed in early June.
The Naro-1 space rocket blasted off from South Korea's space center off the south coast on June 10, but it blew up after reaching an altitude of
about 70 kilometers. Experts from both sides have so far held three rounds of meetings by the Failure Review Board (FRB), but failed to pinpoint the cause of the failure.
Refuting a recent claim by Russia's Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center that no decision has been made on another launch,
the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said an understanding had been reached at the third FRB meeting held in Daejeon, 160 kilometers south of Seoul, on Aug. 9-12.
"Since the FRB officially confirmed that the Naro-1 launch had failed, South Korea can ask its Russian partners for one more rocket under a
bilateral agreement," said Yoo Guk-hee, head of the ministry's space development division.
He added that the request can be made regardless of which side was responsible for the failure.
Under the 2002 pact, Russia was responsible for the first-stage liquid-fueled cryogenic rocket, while South Korea built the smaller
second-stage rocket powered by a solid propellant. It also built the 100 kilogram scientific satellite.
Researchers at the state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) in charge of the country's space program said an agreement had been reached at the bilateral representatives meeting held alongside the FRB conference.
"The FRB meeting itself that focused on technical issues did not deliberate on a third launch, but an agreement was reached nevertheless to send one more joint rocket into space," said a KARI engineer who attended the latest meeting.
He added that if the reason why the rocket failed can be determined, a third launch could take place in 2010.
The June launch followed a "half-successful" blastoff in August 2009 when the Naro-1, also called the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1, reached orbit, but a problem in the locally made fairing assembly made it impossible to deploy the satellite.
Seoul has spent 502.5 billion won (US$420.4 million) on the project in the past eight years. The project is part of a larger effort to build an
indigenous space rocket that can carry a medium-sized satellite into space around 2020.