South Korean rocket paves the way for 1st orbital flight from Alcântara – 03/26/2023 – Sidereal Messenger

After more than three months, and technical problems that prevented a launch at the end of last year, the South Korean company Innospace carried out, in partnership with the Brazilian Air Force, the first flight of a private rocket from the Alcântara Launch Center (CLA), in Maranhão. Originally scheduled to fly in December, it ended up taking off last Sunday (19), at 2:52 pm, in an important milestone for the commercial exploitation of the facility.

The Hanbit-TLV is a suborbital test vehicle, that is, incapable of putting any payload to go around the Earth. Instead, it just goes up into space and then falls down _ like many Brazilian sounding rockets launched before Alcântara.

With its 16.3 meters, and a single stage, it is powered by hybrid propulsion (paraffin and liquid oxygen), which is a novelty for Brazil. The engine burn lasted 106 seconds, and the total flight, including the crash, lasted four and a half minutes. The payload came from here, with Sisnav, an inertial navigation system developed by the IAE (Institute of Aeronautics and Space) for future Brazilian vehicles. It is a device that allows the guidance of the rocket in its trajectory.

The altitude reached was not disclosed, according to the company, due to the imposition of the FAB, which operates the CLA, but the stated goal before the flight was to reach 80 km. The launch itself was also not broadcast live by determination of the military, justified by a mix of security, paranoia and lack of infrastructure. Despite this, videos (beautiful, by the way) were recorded by the South Korean company, which last year signed an agreement with the Brazilian government to use the center for five years.

The Hanbit-TLV is a technological precursor for a future satellite launcher, the Hanbit-Nano, which will have two stages and will be able to carry small satellites (up to 50 kg) to an orbit of 500 km of altitude, synchronous with the Sun ( where the satellite keeps its photovoltaic panels always exposed to sunlight). The company’s expectation is to make the first flight of this small launcher in 2024.

With that, Alcântara is close to having its first successful orbital launch – something that Brazil was unable to promote with its own launcher project, started in 1980. The national VLS-1 (Satellite Launch Vehicle) starred in three attempts to launch, in 1997, 1999 and 2003, all of which failed and the third causing an accident that killed 21 people.

Attracting small businesses to explore the center has become an important goal of the Bolsonaro administration. Before signing with Innospace, the government had “allotted” the CLA sites in 2021 between four companies: Virgin Orbit, Hyperion and Orion AST, from the USA, and C6 Launch, from Canada. Of these, only the first has a functioning launcher, but it is in bad shape, on the verge of bankruptcy; the second has already failed; the last two are still standing.

With the development, the South Koreans jump to the front of the queue as the owners of the first commercial orbital launch to be carried out from Brazilian soil. But, of course, there is still a lot of work ahead.

This column is published on Mondays in the printed version, in Folha Corrida.

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