This paper provides an empirical assessment of the development of North Korea's Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM), and its influence on South Korea's maritime strategy. While research studies on North Korea's ballistic-missile capabilities and South Korea's ballistic-missile defense systems are proliferating, less analytical attention has been given to the way that the strengthening of North Korea's ballistic-missile capacities presents a critical threat to the ROK's navy and lines of communication. The authors of this paper identify the continuing development of unique ASBM capabilities by China and Iran, and determine that such processes are mutually interactive and in accordance with threat perceptions; furthermore, North Korea can enact the same process by learning lessons from these nations. The findings of this paper provide an implication for the formulation of South Korea's maritime strategy and the related assets in consideration of the ASBM as a future threat.

Using a multiple regression analysis, a total of 78 low-Reynolds-number airfoils are examined in this paper to clarify the systematic relationships between the geometrical parameters of the airfoils and experimentally-determined aerodynamic coefficients. The results show that the effects of the maximum camber and the maximum thickness regarding the maximum lift and the stalling angle of attack, respectively, are major. The lower-surface flatness of the airfoil is also a crucial geometrical parameter for aerodynamic performance. It is proven here that, generally, the application of the regression equations for an assessment of the aerodynamic performance is relatively acceptable, along with an expectation that the lift-curve slope violates the normality assumption.

The on-board appendages of satellites with mechanical moving parts such as the fly-wheel, the control-moment gyro, the cryocooler, and the gimbal-type directional antenna can generate an undesirable micro-vibration disturbance, which is one of the main causes of the image-quality degradation that affects high-resolution observation satellites. Consequently, the isolation of the micro-vibration issue has always been considered as salient, and the micro-vibration is therefore the focus of this study wherein a complex system that can provide the dual functions of a guaranteed vibration-isolation performance and electrical energy harvesting is proposed. The vibration-isolation and energy-harvesting performances of the complex system are predicted through a numerical analysis based on the characteristics that are obtained from component-level tests. In addition, the effectiveness of the complex system that is proposed in this study is verified through an assembly-level functional-performance test.

The intermediate mixing chamber is one of various methods for improving the regression rate and combustion efficiency of the hybrid rocket. The mixing chamber with its non-combustible material makes the propulsion performance increase, but it leads to a low fuel-loading density in the combustion chamber; therefore, this performance-related trade-off between the mixing chamber and the low fuel-loading density was studied. In this study, the trade-off was conducted by comparing the intermediate-mixing-chamber case with a w/o-mixing-chamber case. The small hybrid-sounding rocket is designed with internal ballistics for comparing the rocket length to the weight. In addition, an external ballistic analysis was conducted for comparing the performances of the w/- and w/o-mixing-chamber cases. As a result, the intermediate-mixing-chamber case shows that the length and the weight were decreased to 12 % and 8 %, respectively; furthermore, when compared with the normal cases, the estimated altitude result of the w/-mixing-chamber case was increased to approximately 75 m.

This paper explains space-technology startup-business support programs. MSIP (Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning) and KARI (Korea Aerospace Research Institute) began running startup-business support programs from 2013 according to a "space-technology industrialization plan." In addition, MSIP and KARI have been running startup academies and STAR-Exploration for future entrepreneurs and startup companies since 2015. From these programs, five startup companies were established and they are generating sales. This paper shows the results of the programs, and the program cases of the startup and venture companies are analyzed for both domestic and international audiences. The future direction of startup-business support programs that are based on space technology is also discussed.

In this paper, a wind-tunnel test is accomplished to investigate the roll characteristics of a variable-span wing flying inside a channel. The factors that affect the roll characteristics of the wing were identified by analyzing the measured data; accordingly, when the wing is flying without both the ground and sidewall effects, the asymmetric wing extension causes the roll moment. Both the ground and the sidewall can increase the roll moment, but when the wing is affected by both the ground and the sidewall, the roll moment does not increase as much as the case where the wing is only affected by the ground. Also, the aerodynamic characteristics of the flying wing inside a channel are the nonlinear function of the wing height and the gap between the wingtip and the sidewall, both of which should be considered in a study of the stability and the flight control of the wing-in-ground effect of the vehicle flying inside a channel.

This paper describes the operational concept of the Aegis ship's missile defense. Recently, North Korea conducted a fourth nuclear-weapon test that involved the launch of a long-range missile and the underwater launch of an SLBM. The ground-based BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) system is very limited for the SLBM of a miniaturized nuclear warhead; therefore, it is necessary to build a reliable sea-based missile-defense system. The ROK Navy has, however, only utilized the Aegis ship that is designed with a search-and-tracking sensor but is without a ballistic-missile interception capability. Given this information, this work focuses on the operational concept of the Aegis BMD by comparing the BMD capabilities of the ROK with those of the U.S.

The elastomeric O-ring is the most-commonly-used seal due to its excellent sealing capacity, and its availability in various costs and sizes; furthermore, its importance has lasted over a long duration. However, a dearth of research exists in Korea regarding the elastomeric O-ring and the corresponding techniques. The constituent parts of elastomeric rubber are important; to determine their properties, the uni-axial tension and equi-biaxial tension need to be tested. Also, the non-linear analysis method reduces the design cost. An O-ring failure causes leaks and vibration. In this paper, foreign objects are used to affect an O-ring and its performance so that all angles of the O-ring design can be considered. This paper presents a solution for the O-ring-failure problem using a finite-element analysis.

In this study, an investigation was performed on the mechanical properties of the natural-fiber-composite structure. The specimen was manufactured using the Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM) method. The flax-fiber materials were adopted for the natural fiber composite, and vinyl-ester resin was also adopted. After a manufactured specimen was obtained, a mechanical test was carried out. The mechanical properties of the experiment results were compared with those of the natural-composite data cited from a number of other references.

The properties of composite materials, when compared to those of metallic materials, are highly variable due to many factors including the batch-to-batch variability of raw materials, the prepreg manufacturing process, material handling, part-fabrication techniques, ply-stacking sequences, environmental conditions, and test procedures. It is therefore necessary to apply reliable statistical-analysis techniques to obtain the design allowables of composite materials. A new composite-material qualification process has been developed by the Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments (AGATE) consortium to yield the lamina-design allowables of composite materials according to standardized coupon-level tests and statistical techniques; moreover, the generated allowables database can be shared among multiple users without a repeating of the full qualification procedure by each user. In 2005, NASA established the National Center for Advanced Materials Performance (NCAMP) with the purpose of refining and enhancing the AGATE process to a self-sustaining level to serve the entire aerospace industry. In this paper, the statistical techniques and procedures for the generation of the allowables of aerospace composite materials will be discussed with a focus on the pooling-across-environments method.