Seoul, July 5 (IANS) South Korea plans to launch its fourth medium-sized Earth observation satellite aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Tuesday, the space agency said.

The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) said the 500-kilogram satellite will be launched at 4:10 p.m. Korea time, reports Yonhap news agency.

The satellite has completed function inspections and fuel injection over the past month and is now awaiting launch aboard the Falcon 9.

It is scheduled to separate from the launch vehicle about 2 hours and 22 minutes after liftoff and make its first contact with the ground approximately 31 minutes later through the Svalbard ground station in Norway, KASA said.

The satellite carries homegrown payloads, including an observation camera capable of imaging the entire Korean Peninsula every three days.

The government expects the satellite to be used for a wide range of applications, including agriculture and forest management, forest change monitoring, disaster response, climate change analysis and public safety enhancement.

After reaching its target orbit at an altitude of about 888 kilometers, the satellite will undergo four months of initial in-orbit operations before beginning full-scale missions in the first half of next year, the agency said.

Meanwhile, South Korea aims to establish a low-Earth orbit satellite communications network composed of hundreds of satellites by 2035 and accelerate the country’s first lunar landing to 2030, the state-run space agency said.

The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) unveiled the plan during a public briefing on advanced industry development held in the southeastern city of Jinju. The strategy was approved earlier in the day by the National Space Council, chaired by President Lee Jae Myung.

KASA said building the network will help strengthen South Korea’s domestic satellite and launch vehicle development and manufacturing ecosystem as the country pushes to build its own version of SpaceX’s Starlink network.

—IANS

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