Second Straight Rocket Failure For South Korea

eldavojohn writes "South Korea suffered its second straight setback today as its Naro-1 rocket carrying a scientific satellite exploded. The rocket produced a bright flash during stage-one ignition as the ground crews lost contact with it. South Korea paired with Russia to produce the Naro-1 and was looking to both relieve its dependence on other nations to put its satellites in orbit and compete with the space programs of China, India, and Japan. Following a failure on August 25, 2009, this marks the second failed attempt for Naro Space Center to launch a Naro-1 rocket. It appears the old adage revolving around the complexities of 'rocket science' remains valid."

Comments

Re:Soviet space program

[FleaPlus]

It is unfortunate people still have to learn from their mistakes when this has already been done at least twice (CCCP and the US). A person might figure they could afford to hire a couple of engineers who already went through this trial and error.

Actually, the Naro-1 is a Korean-Russian collaboration, with a Russian-built first stage and a Korean-built second stage. It's still unclear at this point which stage (or interaction thereof) caused the problem.

As an aside, the Russian-built first stage basically a slightly modified first stage of their under-development Angara rocket.

Re:Eventually they'll get it right

[Wyatt Earp]

Because the DPRK is pushing more GDP into the program and there is the threat of prison for the scientists and engineers, families, parents and grandparents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aquariums_of_Pyongyang
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yodok_concentration_camp

No one in the RoK will be imprisoned or killed if they fail at the rocket program. Now...how successful has the DPRK ICBM/orbital program been?

Not that successful
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwangmyngsng%2D2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_North_Korean_missile_test
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwangmyngsng-1

Now, the DPRK has SCUD and FROG type missiles that can get a nuke (if their nukes are small and light enough) to the RoK, China and Japan

The first DRPK nuclear test was most likely a failure, far less than 4 KT and the second was also small, a 1-5 KT or so

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE55E5BA20090615

The danger from the DPRK is the massive amounts of conventional artillery and battlefield rockets they have, not nukes. FROGs and SCUDs can be shot down by Patriots, the US and RoK will hammer them with long range PGMs like MRLS and with airpower.

Seoul would have to be at least nuked before the US would deploy nuclear weapons that close to Russia and China.

Re:problem is not complexity

[trout007]

You are correct. In mechanical engineering we use Factor of Safety. This means how many times stronger did you design something than your analysis showed it needs to be. For most stuff I build we use a factor of 2-3 because it stays on the ground and the use of extra material is cheaper than taking time to make it light weight. Cars use around the same numbers. Buildings can go as low as 1.67. Aircraft are around 1.5-2.0. Human rated spacecraft are around 1.4 and some unmanned launchers are as low as 1.2. What this means is the lower the number the more analysis and testing you have to do to make sure you know your loads are right. Also not all material of the same specification is the same strength. If you try to break 10 different samples of aluminum you will get a normal distribution of how strong they are. If you are using a FS of 3 who cares. But if you are at 1.2 then you have to send every batch of material out for testing to make sure it is as strong as you designed for.