On March 20th, the South Korean space startup Innospace made the announcement that it had successfully launched its suborbital test launch vehicle, HANBIT-TLV.
According to the information provided by the company, the single stage hybrid rocket with a thrust of 8.4 tonnes was successfully launched at 2:52 p.m. (local time) from the Alcantara Space Center in the northern region of Brazil.
In a statement, Innospace disclosed that the business is in the process of evaluating the flight performance and payloads of the engine. The results of the launch will be revealed at a later time by the company.
Since December of the previous year, Innospace has been forced to continually postpone the launch of HANBIT-TLV due to a combination of adverse weather conditions and mechanical problems.
The HANBIT-TLV is South Korea’s first private small satellite launcher. Its purpose is to validate the first stage engine of the HANBIT-Nano, which is a commercial rocket with the capacity to launch small satellites weighing up to 50 kilogrammes.
Innospace and the Brazilian Department of Aerospace Research and Technology agreed last year to launch the latter’s inertial navigation system, SISNAV, as a payload on HANBIT-TLV.
Innospace has the potential to become South Korea’s first commercial launch service provider if the test firing of the HANBIT-TLV is successful. This would make Innospace analogous to Space Exploration Technologies Inc., more commonly known as Space X in the United States.
The government of South Korea has also led aerospace programmes, the most recent of which was the launch into orbit in June 2022 of the 200-ton rocket Nuri, which transported a 162.5-kilogram performance verification satellite.
