SKorea completes preparations to launch satellite nearly a year after failure

South Korea readies satellite launch

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea completed preparations Wednesday for its second attempt to send a satellite into space after failing in the ambitious endeavor last year.

The two-stage Naro rocket loaded with an observation satellite to study global warming and climate change was scheduled to blast off later Wednesday. South Korea aims to become a regional space power along with China, Japan and India.

The planned liftoff at the coastal Naro space center in Goheung, about 290 miles (465 kilometers) south of Seoul, would be country’s second launch of a rocket from its own territory in a less than year. The first stage of the two-stage rocket was designed and built by Russia and the second by South Korea.

In the first attempt last August, the satellite failed to go into orbit because one of its two covers apparently failed to come off after liftoff. Since 1992, South Korea has launched 11 satellites from overseas sites, all on foreign-made rockets.

Officials said everything was ready to go.

“All preparations have been completed,” said Lee Joo-heon, an official at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, which oversees the launch. Vice Science Minister Kim Jung-hyun said liftoff would take place at 5 p.m. local time (0800 GMT).

“We will do our best to the last minute to live up to the people’s wish for success,” he told reporters.

The latest attempt comes amid heightened tension on the Korean peninsula after South Korea referred North Korea to the U.N. Security Council over the sinking of a navy ship that killed 46 South Korean sailors.

North Korea — which denies involvement in the sinking — has threatened to retaliate against South Korea for taking it to the U.N. body, saying the South’s action will intensify military tension and could trigger a war on the divided peninsula.

There was no immediate North Korean reaction to the planned liftoff from rival South Korea. Last year, North Korea warned it would closely watch the international response to South Korea’s launch after a North Korean launch drew a U.N. rebuke.

Pyongyang has developed a variety of missiles and launched a long-range rocket from a domestic launch site in April last year in defiance of international warnings.

Pyongyang said the rocket carried a satellite into orbit as part of a peaceful space development program, but the U.S. and its allies said nothing reached space and the launch was actually a test of the country’s missile technology.

North Korea, unlike the South, is banned from any ballistic activity by U.N. Security Council resolutions as part of efforts to eliminate its nuclear and long-range missile programs.

The two Koreas are still technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.

The Science Ministry said South Korea plans to develop a space launch vehicle with its own technology by 2020.

China, Japan and India are Asia’s current space powers. Japan has launched numerous satellites while China sent astronaut Yang Liwei into space in 2003 and carried out its first spacewalk in 2008.

India launched a satellite orbiting the moon in 2008, but had to abandon it nearly a year later after communication links snapped and scientists lost control of it.