Reused rocket boosts SpaceX KPLO Moon mission

#REPORTER

30 august 2022

6 minutes

SpaceX is improving the quality and speed of sustainable space exploration by lightyears. They recently launched South Korea’s “Denuri” lunar orbiter into space with reused rocket components. Here is how this Moon mission is impacting space sustainability and safety from an international level.

Words by Rebekah Smith

SpaceX's recent KPLO Moon mission is another step toward changing the world of space sustainability.

Picture by RODNAE Productions

South Korea is making its way to the Moon with the help of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. On August 4, SpaceX sent its Falcon 9 model to the Moon carrying South Korea’s “Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter”, called KPLO or “Danuri.” SpaceX used a spent first-stage booster and payload fairings to launch the KPLO into space, and it should arrive in lunar orbit by mid-December. This is the first step toward getting South Korea onto the Moon by 2030.

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) designed the KPLO, in association with NASA, to survey lunar resources and produce a topographic map. The KPLO will use ballistic lunar transfer (BLT) to reach its destination by allowing the gravitational pulls of the Sun, Earth and Moon to place the payload into lunar orbit. KARI chose SpaceX to send up their orbiter most likely because of the cost, capacity and reliability when compared to other companies.

An added bonus of choosing SpaceX to launch the KPLO is that SpaceX creator Elon Musk is committed to putting low-cost, high-power technology into space in a more sustainable way.

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SpaceX is improving the quality and speed of sustainable space exploration by lightyears. They recently launched South Korea’s “Denuri” lunar orbiter into space with reused rocket components. Here is how this Moon mission is impacting space sustainability and safety from an international level.

South Korea is making its way to the Moon with the help of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. On August 4, SpaceX sent its Falcon 9 model to the Moon carrying South Korea’s “Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter”, called KPLO or “Danuri.” SpaceX used a spent first-stage booster and payload fairings to launch the KPLO into space, and it should arrive in lunar orbit by mid-December. This is the first step toward getting South Korea onto the Moon by 2030.

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) designed the KPLO, in association with NASA, to survey lunar resources and produce a topographic map. The KPLO will use ballistic lunar transfer (BLT) to reach its destination by allowing the gravitational pulls of the Sun, Earth and Moon to place the payload into lunar orbit. KARI chose SpaceX to send up their orbiter most likely because of the cost, capacity and reliability when compared to other companies.

An added bonus of choosing SpaceX to launch the KPLO is that SpaceX creator Elon Musk is committed to putting low-cost, high-power technology into space in a more sustainable way.

In February 2022, SpaceX published its “approach to space sustainability and safety” which includes a commitment to use resources which will allow launch vehicles, spacecrafts and satellites to meet or exceed safety regulations.

According to their website, SpaceX’s mission for space sustainability and safety is contingent on the following principles:

- Designing and building safe, reliable and demisable satellites.
- Inserting satellites into space at extremely low orbit and operating below 600 km to maintain controlled flight, and deorbiting satellites which do not pass initial system checkouts in order to avoid creating “space junk.”
- Transparency and data sharing with government, satellite owners and operators, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Space-Track.org (for individuals).
- Avoiding satellite, spacecraft and space station collision through the “Collision Avoidance System.”

SpaceX’s recent launch

[Their] recent launch of the KPLO is the sixth launch and landing of this particular first-stage booster, which had previously sent up three satellites and two Starlink constellation missions.The set of payload fairings used in this mission have been used three times prior. SpaceX is known for landing this first-stage on land near the launch site or on a drone ship in the ocean. Meanwhile, payload fairings parachute into the water and are picked up by the company’s boats to be reused.

Elon Musk’s mission behind SpaceX is to make life multiplanetary. The key to being successful is rapid reusability. By reusing rocket components, SpaceX can put its technology back into space at a faster rate, multiplying the speed of space exploration. It is also more cost-effective, as Musk has mostly been able to avoid building and wasting entire rockets with each new payload that goes to or returns from space.

South Korea’s KPLO will make its way into lunar orbit in mid-December at a rate significantly slower than most lunar missions. However, this requires the object to expend less fuel. This is because the BLT sends the orbiter toward the Sun before boosting it back to the Moon through its gravitational pull.

SpaceX’s reused Falcon 9 rocket, along with South Korea’s use of BLT, is impacting the world of space sustainability and safety by producing less space waste and spent fuel. Whether its purpose is for efficiency or sustainability, both are ultimately creating a more sustainable and efficient future for space exploration.

Within the next year, SpaceX will launch its Starship to take hundreds of Starlink satellites into space at a time. The Starship is designed to be a 100% reusable rocket system. His goal is to land the stages, restack and refuel them, and launch again. This is another way that Musk’s approach to rapid reusability will help make life multiplanetary.