South Korea has successfully launched its first homegrown space rocket, the science ministry said on Tuesday.

According to the Science Ministry, the Nuri rocket placed a functioning performance verification satellite at a target altitude of 700 kilometers.

Nuri, meaning "world" in native Korean, also known as KSLV-II (Korean Space Launch Vehicle-II), is a three-stage launch vehicle, the second one developed by South Korea and the successor to Naro-1 (KSLV-1).

Nuri is developed by Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI). All three stages use indigenously developed launch vehicle engines, making Nuri the first indigenously developed Korean orbital launch vehicle (the Naro-1 launch vehicle used Russian-made first stage). The South Korean government has set SpaceX as a "role model", striving to develop relatively cheap and reliable rockets competitive enough for the commercial launch market.

On 21 October 2021, it had its first flight at 08:00 UTC and it launched a 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) dummy satellite payload into what was planned to be a 700 km (430 mi) Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). However, despite the payload reaching the targeted apogee (700 km), the third stage shut down about 46 seconds earlier than planned and the payload did not achieve orbital speed. (ILKHA)