S.Korea, Russia to hold 2nd meeting to determine causes of rocket failure next week

South Korea and Russia will hold a second meeting next week to look into what caused the failure of their jointly developed space rocket last month, the government said Friday.

South Korea's locally assembled two-stage satellite-carrier Naro-1, or the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1), lifted off from the Naro Space Center off the country's south coast at 5:01?PM on June 10, but it blew up at an altitude of 70 kilometers, 137 seconds after blastoff.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said that 26 experts from the two countries will gather at the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center in Moscow for the five-day Failure Review Board (FRB) meeting, starting next Monday.

The experts will exchange data collected from the rocket's first and second stages and will proceed with discussions to determine the causes of the failure.

The first FRB meeting was held on June 14, during which the experts shared their respective analysis on the rocket's telecommunication before it exploded.

Under a contract signed in 2004 between the two countries, South Korea has the right to ask for a third launch if the original two missions end in failure, although Russia is not obligated to comply.

The latest explosion in June marks the second failure to launch the Naro-1, after the first attempt, carried out on Aug. 25 last year, went into failure due to a malfunction in the fairing assembly that made it impossible to place the 100 kilogram satellite into orbit.

The South Korean government has spent 502.5 billion won (US$407 million) since 2002 to build the rocket and learn related technologies with Russian assistance and technical supervision.