Park Tae-hak, senior researcher at the Agency for Defense Development, will lead a project to develop technologies needed to launch an entirely Korean-made space launch vehicle

The Ministry of Education and Science and Technology said Tuesday that it has appointed Park the project leader at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute and would soon initiate the first phase of the project.

During the four-year term, he will be in charge of developing and designing crucial parts of the vehicle, such as a liquid-fuel rocket engine, and conduct some of the tests for the parts.

Despite the two failures in 2009 and 2010, South Korea has continued efforts to develop its own space launch vehicle. The project aims to send a launch vehicle that can carry a 1.5 ton multi-purpose satellite into the lower Earth orbit at altitudes between 600-800 kilometers.

The expert on space vehicle structure has worked at the defense agency for 30 years, during which he has participated in key space projects.

Park was a member of a committee investigating the failure of space rocket Naro 1 in 2009, and now supervises the investigation into the causes of the second failure of the space vehicle.

“I believe my 30 year experience of developing precision-guided arms will help the project,” said Park. “Having learned from two failures in launching Naro, I will try to meet the nationwide expectation on development of our own space technologies.”

By Lee Woo-young (wylee@heraldcorp.com)