For the first time in the country's history, South Korea sent its own lunar probe into space on the evening of August 4. At 19.08 local time, the Danuri spacecraft took off as scheduled from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in the US state of Florida. In Germany at that time it was 1.08 am on August 5th. This was announced by the private space company SpaceX, which broadcast the launch live. Initially, Danuri was on board a Falcon-9 launch vehicle of the space company. The orbiter is expected to reach the moon around mid-December and start its one-year lunar mission.
The name Danuri is derived from the Korean terms "Dal" for the moon and "Nuri" for "enjoy". However, the room probe originally called "Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter". The name change had been decided in a public vote.
One step closer to a lunar landing
Danuri is supposed to circle the moon and collect data from the surface of the Trabanten from the orbit. In addition, the probe is equipped with a special camera, the polcam that captures the surface quality of the moon with the help of polarized light. In addition, Danuri is equipped with the Shadowcam, which is supposed to take pictures of the moon's craters in the shade.
The lunar mission is the result of cooperation between the Korean State Space Research Institute (KARI) and the US space agency NASA. It is part of an ambitious space program: South Korea wants to realize its own moon landing by 2030. In June, the state had successfully launched satellites for civilian use into Earth orbit for the first time with a self-built launcher.
