Article Posted on : - Jun 10, 2010

The Naro-1 after lift off. A Yonhap photo

SEOUL (BNS): South Korea's Naro-1 space rocket carrying a satellite crashed few seconds after liftoff on Thursday.

Ground controllers said they lost contact with the two-stage carrier rocket 137 seconds after it was launched from the Naro Space Centre off the country's south coast at 0801 GMT on Thursday.

�The rocket was at an altitude of 70 kilometers and about 87 kilometers from the Naro Space Center when all communication was severed,� the state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) President Lee Joo-jin was quoted as saying by the official Yonhap news agency.

In a subsequent report, the news agency said that the rocket may have crashed after reaching altitude of 70km. There were several explosions, it said.

The 140-ton Naro-1 was built with Russia�s help. The rocket had a Russian-built first stage with a liquid-fueled engine and a Korean-built second stage and payload fairing.

The rocket was earlier scheduled to be launched on Wednesday but it was postponed after engineers discovered a leak in one of the three oil fire extinguisher nozzles of the rocket.

This was South Korea�s second attempt to launch the rocket in space. A previous attempt in August 2009 had also ended in failure.