SOUTH KOREA LAUNCHES SATELLITE INTO ORBIT

South Korea said it successfully launched a small but working satellite into orbit using its first homemade rocket Tuesday, bringing the country closer to its dream of becoming a new player in the space industry and deploying its own spy satellites to better monitor North Korea.

The three-stage Nuri rocket, built by the government’s Korea Aerospace Research Institute together with hundreds of local companies, blasted off from the Naro Space Center in Goheung on the southwestern tip of South Korea at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Seventy minutes after the liftoff, South Korea announced that Nuri had succeeded in its mission of thrusting a 357-pound working satellite, as well as a 1.3ton dummy satellite, into orbit 435 miles above the Earth.

It was a moment of national pride, with the takeoff shown live on all the country’s major TV stations, as well as on its YouTube science channels. In the run-up to the launch, the government and local media had billed the Nuri mission as a momentous event through which South Korea would secure a foothold in space technology, the latest hightech market where the country has decided to become a player.

“South Korea’s science and technology took a great step forward today,” said Lee Jong-ho, the government’s science and technology minister, announcing the mission’s success during a nationally televised news conference. “We have laid the foundation for launching our own satellites when we want to, no longer having to depend on other countries’ rockets and launch stations.”