"Arirang 6 and Chajunghyeong 2 Grounded for 2 Years, Costs Snowballing"

Park Wan-joo, Member of the National Assembly Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee
Pointed out on the 19th citing data from the Ministry of Science and ICT and Korea Aerospace Research Institute

Two new Korean satellites, the Multipurpose Practical Satellite (Arirang) 6 and the Next-Generation Medium Satellite 2, have not been launched for two years due to the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine war, causing costs to balloon like a snowball.

Arirang 6 Satellite Virtual Image

On the 19th, Park Wan-joo, a member of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee, pointed this out in a press release for the national audit. Arirang 6 is a high-performance synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite for national land management and monitoring, which was scheduled to be launched last year using Russia's Soyuz launch vehicle. The Next-Generation Medium Satellite 2 was also planned to be sent into space aboard a Russian launch vehicle at the end of last year. However, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it was included in international sanctions in March last year, making it difficult to recover the contract payments already made. Moreover, no alternative launch schedule has been set.

Arirang 6 has a budget of 46.4 billion KRW, and the Next-Generation Medium Satellite 2 has 25.5 billion KRW. So far, the budget spent on launch service fees (part of the launch agency costs) and incidental expenses (research personnel salaries and activity costs, launch vehicle assembly tests and connection tests, transportation costs, on-site work expenses, etc.) amounts to 71.9 billion KRW. Since the sanctions against Russia, an additional 11.6 billion KRW has been spent on launch and incidental costs up to this year. The government refused to disclose specific details of the additional expenditures, citing contractual confidentiality obligations.

For now, Arirang 6 signed an alternative launch service contract in May this year with Europe's Arianespace (Vega-C). However, the launch schedule cannot be guaranteed. If the contract is terminated again due to unavoidable circumstances such as international situations or natural disasters, another launch vehicle must be selected, which could lead to additional launch costs and schedule delays. In the case of Next-Generation Medium Satellite 2, alternative launch contract negotiations have been ongoing for two years, and no concrete launch schedule has been established yet.

Assemblyman Park Wan-joo said, “It is very regrettable that the years of hard work by the research team have not seen the light of day due to the two-year launch delay,” and urged, “Since 71.9 billion KRW of taxpayers' money has already been spent, the Ministry of Science and ICT should actively prepare a joint response plan among multiple ministries to speed up the recovery of the originally paid contract funds and the alternative launch.”

Park also pointed out, “Arirang 6 is scheduled to replace the expired Arirang 5 and perform real-time observation of abnormal weather and high-precision regional imaging of military interest,” adding, “It will play a critical role in protecting the lives and safety of the people by sharing real-time forecasts of abnormal weather and security situations, so the launch must be completed on time to prevent any safety and security gaps.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.