South Korea joined the lunar rush on Thursday with the launch of a lunar orbiter to scout future landing sites.
The satellite launched by SpaceX has taken a long detour to save fuel and is expected to arrive in December.
If successful, it will join US and Indian spacecraft already operating around the Moon and Chinese rovers exploring the far side of the Moon.
India, Russia and Japan will launch New Moon missions later this year or next year, as will the United States and many other private companies. And NASA plans to debut her Mega Moon Rocket in late August.
Her $180 million mission in South Korea is the first step in lunar exploration, a box-shaped solar-powered satellite designed to fly just 100 kilometers above the lunar surface. is characterized by Scientists plan to collect geological and other data from this low polar orbit for at least a year.
This is her Second shot.
In June, South Korea successfully launched its first satellite package into Earth orbit using its own rocket. A first attempt last fall failed, with the test satellite failing to reach orbit.
And in May, South Korea will join her NASA-led coalition to explore the Moon with astronauts in the years and decades to come. NASA is targeting the end of this month for the first launch of the Artemis program . The goal is to send an empty crew capsule around the moon and test the system before it is boarded by a crew two years later.
Danuri—“enjoy the moon” in Korean—has six carrying scientific equipment. Includes cameras for NASA. It is designed to peer into the permanently shadowed, ice-filled craters at the Moon's poles. NASA favors the lunar south pole as a future astronaut outpost because of evidence of frozen water.
South Korea plans to land its own rover on the moon by around 2030. It's a robot probe.
"Danuri is just the beginning," his Sang-Ryool Lee, president of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, said during the SpaceX launch webcast.
His SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Danuri took off from Cape Canaveral near sunset. The first stage booster made his sixth flight, landing on an ocean platform minutes later and being recycled further.
It was his third space shot of the day from the United States.
United Launches His Alliance kicked things off with the sunrise over Florida, Atlas V rockets launched with infrared missiles. U.S. Space Force detection satellite. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Rocket Company then sent six passengers into space from West Texas.
Around the world, a company called Rocket Lab launched a small classified satellite from New Zealand for the US National Reconnaissance Agency.
