South Korea’s first mission to the moon, the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), is set to blast off Thursday on a mission to explore magnetic anomalies, search for future landing sites and sniff out rare elements on the moon.
The spacecraft, which is also known as ‘Danuri’ — a portmanteau of Korean words meaning ‘moon’ and ‘enjoy’ — is currently scheduled to launch on Aug. 4 at 7:08 p.m. EDT (2308 GMT) atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Upon arrival at the moon, Danuri will enter lunar polar orbit and cruise above the surface at an altitude of 60 miles (100 kilometers).
Not only is Danuri a trailblazer for Korean space exploration, with further missions set to follow, but Danuri will also use six different instruments to conduct important science during its year in operation around the moon. Among other topics, it will focus on the moon’s puzzling magnetism, search for water ice in permanently shadowed craters and test a new experiment designed to improve communication dropouts.
https://www.space.com/korea-moon-mission-danuri-science