SEOUL, Oct 21, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - South Korea is aiming to join the ranks of

advanced spacefaring nations on Thursday when it attempts to put a one-tonne
payload into orbit using its first fully homegrown rocket.

  The country has risen to become the world's 12th-largest economy and a
technologically advanced nation, home to the planet's biggest smartphone and
memory chip maker, Samsung Electronics.

  But it has lagged in the headline-making world of spaceflight, where the
Soviet Union led the way with the first satellite launch in 1957, closely
followed by the United States.

  In Asia, China, Japan and India all have advanced space programmes, and the
South's nuclear-armed neighbour North Korea was the most recent entrant to
the club of countries with their own satellite launch capability.

  Ballistic missiles and space rockets use similar technology and Pyongyang
put a 300-kilogramme (660-pound) satellite into orbit in 2012 in what Western
countries condemned as a disguised missile test.

  Even now, only six nations -- not including North Korea -- have
successfully launched a one-tonne payload on their own rockets.

  The South will become the seventh if the Korean Satellite Launch Vehicle
II, informally called Nuri, succeeds in putting its 1.5-tonne dummy cargo
into orbit from the launch site in Goheung, with an altitude of 600 to 800
kilometres being targeted.

  The three-stage rocket has been a decade in development at a cost of 2
trillion won ($1.6 billion). It weighs 200 tonnes and is 47.2 metres (155
feet) long, fitted with a total of six liquid-fuelled engines.

  - Aiming for the Moon -

  But the South Korean space programme has a chequered record -- its first
two launches in 2009 and 2010, which in part used Russian technology, both
ended in failure, the second one exploding two minutes into the flight and
Seoul and Moscow blaming each other.

  Eventually a 2013 launch succeeded, but still relied on a Russian-developed
engine for its first stage.

  The satellite launch business is increasingly the preserve of private
companies, notably Elon Musk's SpaceX, whose clients include the US space
agency NASA and the South Korean military.

  But one expert said a successful Nuri launch offered South Korea "infinite"
potential.

  "Rockets are the only means available to mankind to go out into space," Lee
Sang-ryul, the director of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, told local
paper Chosun Biz.

  "Having such technology means we have fulfilled basic requirements to join
this space exploration competition."

  Thursday's launch is one step on an increasingly ambitious space programme
for South Korea, which President Moon Jae-in said would seek to launch a
lunar orbiter next year, after he inspected a Nuri engine test in March.

  "With achievements in South Korean rocket systems, the government will
pursue an active space exploration project," he said.

  "We will realise the dream of landing our probe on the Moon by 2030."