South Korea is set to become the seventh country in the world to launch a lunar probe with the Danuri spacecraft, which is expected to orbit the Moon for at least one year.
Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), South Korea’s first lunar orbiter, is scheduled to be launched into space by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA, on August 2.
Illustration of Danuri, the South Korean spacecraft expected to study the Moon for about a year. (Photo: Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI))
In May of this year, KPLO was officially named Danuri – a combination of the Korean words for “Moon” and “enjoy.” This mission is considered the first step in South Korea’s deep space program, which includes plans to land a robot on the Moon by 2030 and a mission to return asteroid samples to Earth.
Danuri has a dry mass of 418 kg, with the main body measuring 1.82 m in width, 2.14 m in length, and 2.29 m in height. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) reports that Danuri has the advantage of being lighter than lunar orbiters from other countries, such as Japan’s Selene, which weighs 1,984 kg, or the United States’ Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which weighs 1,018 kg.
Danuri will carry a total of six scientific instruments, five of which were developed by South Korean universities and research organizations, while the remaining one is provided by NASA. The six instruments include Lunar Terrain Imager (LUTI), Wide-Angle Polarimetric Camera (PolCam), KMAG magnetometer, Gamma Ray Spectrometer (KGRS), a device named DTNPL, and NASA’s high-sensitivity ShadowCam.
ShadowCam is an instrument developed for NASA by Arizona State University and Malin Space Science Systems. This tool will capture images of areas that are perpetually in shadow on the Moon using high-resolution cameras, telescopes, and highly sensitive sensors. ShadowCam is expected to perform this task while flying at an altitude of about 100 km above the lunar surface, according to Prasun Mahanti, a member of the ShadowCam team at Arizona State University.
According to the plan, Danuri is expected to reach the Moon around mid-December by following a fuel-efficient trajectory known as Ballistic Lunar Transfer. The spacecraft will orbit the Moon for at least one year. The primary mission of this orbiter is to measure the magnetic force on the lunar surface and assess resources such as water ice, uranium, helium-3, silicon, aluminum, as well as map the terrain to help select future landing sites.
