Seoul 2 September : South Korea’s spacecraft that is unmanned Danuri is scheduled to go through a crucial manoeuvre of trajectory on Friday in order to make its way towards the moon in preparation for the country’s first lunar mission, officials said.Danuri also referred to as the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, was launched last month on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in the US state of Florida for South Korea’s very first space mission that goes beyond the Earth’s orbit.
The orbiter is heading to the moon using the ballistic lunar transfer trajectory that takes the vehicle towards the sun, before looping back to reach the moon’s orbit in December.
The journey, although longer than traveling directly towards the moon, is able to provide more efficiency in fuel consumption since it makes use of the sun’s gravity to travel, according to Yonhap news agency.
As per the official state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), Danuri was scheduled to execute the Trajectory Correction Maneuver (TCM), in which Danuri’s direction, location and speed are adjusted to return to the moon.
Cho Young-ho is the head of the Danuri mission operations team at KARI, stated that the TCM will serve as the “bridge role” in the orbiter’s journey which will extend from Earth up to the sun, and then the moon.
The engineers will be able confirm the success of the mission 48 hours after.
na/
