SEOUL,
South Korea (AP) – South Korea will launch its first lunar probe in 2020,
joining an intensifying Asian space race after recent missions to the moon by
China and Japan, the government said Tuesday.
The plan is
part of the government's Space Development Roadmap that also aims to put a
satellite into orbit on a rocket to be developed from homegrown technology by
2017, the Science and Technology Ministry said.
A second
lunar probe, which would land on the moon unlike the first one that would only
orbit the moon, was to be launched in 2025, it said.
The
announcement came after Japan launched a lunar probe in September
and China in October, heating up the space
rivalry in Asia. India was planning to send a lunar probe into space in April.
In June,
the ministry announced that it would spend 3.6 trillion won (US$3.9 billion;
euro2.7 billion) in the next 10 years to advance its space technology enough to
build its own satellites and rockets. The ministry did not give a cost estimate
for the moon probe project.
South Korea lags behind China and Japan in space exploration. Since 1992, the country has launched
11 satellites, mostly for space and ocean observation and communication, but
all of them were carried aboard foreign-made rockets launched from other countries.
South Korea has been developing a two-stage
rocket with Russia, dubbed the Korea Space Launch
Vehicle, to carry an aerospace and atmospheric study satellite into space at
the end of 2008.
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