South Korea seeks $459 million for lunar lander project

South Korea seeks a $459 million budget to build a 1.8-ton robotic lunar lander, which it wants to send to the moon in 2031 for a one-year mission on the nation’s next-generation carrier rocket under development.

On Aug. 5, 2022, South Korea launched Danuri — also known as the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO.) With Danuri, South Korea forays into planetary exploration, begins its ambitious lunar exploration program, and finds a collaborator in NASA. Equipped with four indigenously built instruments and a NASA-provided camera, Danuri will show us new views of the Moon’s surface and help us plan future missions there, including return humans to the Moon...