• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.43-60
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• 2024

Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) is South Korea's first space exploration mission, developed by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute. It aims to develop technologies for lunar exploration, explore lunar science, and test new technologies. KPLO was launched on August 5, 2022, by a Falcon-9 launch vehicle from cape canaveral space force station (CCSFS) in the United States and placed on a ballistic lunar transfer (BLT) trajectory. A total of four trajectory correction maneuvers were performed during the approximately 4.5-month trans-lunar cruise phase to reach the Moon. Starting with the first lunar orbit insertion (LOI) maneuver on December 16, the spacecraft performed a total of three maneuvers before arriving at the lunar mission orbit, at an altitude of 100 kilometers, on December 27, 2022. After entering lunar orbit, the commissioning phase validated the operation of the mission mode, in which the payload is oriented toward the center of the Moon. After completing about one month of commissioning, normal mission operations began, and each payload successfully performed its planned mission. All of the spacecraft operations that KPLO performs from launch to normal operations were designed through the system operations design process. This includes operations that are automatically initiated post-separation from the launch vehicle, as well as those in lunar transfer orbit and lunar mission orbit. Key operational procedures such as the spacecraft's initial checkout, trajectory correction maneuvers, LOI, and commissioning were developed during the early operation preparation phase. These procedures were executed effectively during both the early and normal operation phases. The successful execution of these operations confirms the robust verification of the system operation.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.209-211
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• 2017

We performed Principle Component Analysis (PCA) over 264 galaxies in the IRAS Revised Bright Galaxy Sample (Sanders et al., 2003) using 12, 25, 60 and $100{\mu}m$ flux data observed by IRAS and 9, 18, 65, 90 and $140{\mu}m$ flux data observed by AKARI. We found that (i)the first principle component was largely contributed by infrared to visible flux ratio, (ii)the second principal component was largely contributed by the flux ratio between IRAS and AKARI, (iii)the third principle component was largely contributed by infrared colors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2004.03a
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• pp.867-869
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• 2004

A smart blade conception has been proposed by the authors. With stretching-twisting coupling effect, the blade is twisted by centrifugal load or ambient temperature change. In this paper, the blades, made by three kinds of anti-symmetric laminates, are investigated by rotational tests. The results show the angle of smart blade tips increases in proportion to the 2nd power of a rotating speed and is well in agreement with the numerical results by FEM.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.42 no.9
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• pp.739-744
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• 2014

Space exploration project usually consists of so many fields of sub projects that it has a diverse ripple effect throughout the economy. Further studies could not consider the complexity of the space exploration project because they regarded it as one project in spite of the diversity. This study found a way to consider complexity of space exploration project using the concept of WAC(weighted average coefficient). The moon exploration project (2014~2020) is the subject of this study. We classified the moon exploration project into 8 industries and calculated the WAC of production inducement coefficient, value added inducement coefficient, and employment inducement coefficient. The result of analysis using these WACs is that production inducement effect amounts to 1,229.6 billion won, value added inducement effect 324.6 billion won, employment inducement effect 4,844 men. And the linkage effect analysis shows that moon exploration project has more backward linkage effect than forward linkage effect.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.11-21
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• 2019

Intensive Monitoring Survey of Nearby Galaxies (IMSNG) is a high cadence observation program monitoring nearby galaxies with high probabilities of hosting supernovae (SNe). IMSNG aims to constrain the SN explosion mechanism by inferring sizes of SN progenitor systems through the detection of the shock-heated emission that lasts less than a few days after the SN explosion. To catch the signal, IMSNG utilizes a network of 0.5-m to 1-m class telescopes around the world and monitors the images of 60 nearby galaxies at distances D < 50 Mpc to a cadence as short as a few hours. The target galaxies are bright in near-ultraviolet (NUV) with $M_{NUV}$ < -18.4 AB mag and have high probabilities of hosting SNe ($0.06SN\;yr^{-1}$ per galaxy). With this strategy, we expect to detect the early light curves of 3.4 SNe per year to a depth of R ~ 19.5 mag, enabling us to detect the shock-heated emission from a progenitor star with a radius as small as $0.1R_{\odot}$. The accumulated data will be also useful for studying faint features around the target galaxies and other science projects. So far, 18 SNe have occurred in our target fields (16 in IMSNG galaxies) over 5 years, confirming our SN rate estimate of $0.06SN\;yr^{-1}$ per galaxy.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.201-207
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• 2012

Following the first Public Release of the AKARI Point Source catalogues, we have worked on the production of a new far-infrared All-Sky Diffuse mapping product. In this paper we report first results from the All Sky diffuse maps that will shortly be released to the community, based on analysis of data from the Far Infrared Surveyor ($65{\mu}m-160{\mu}m$) instrument. These data are likely to have a strong impact on studies of extended structures, and the diffuse ISM.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2010

This paper designs a data link between a Lunar Orbiter (LO) and an Earth Station (ES), and analyzes the downlink performance of a space communications system for lunar exploration, conforming to the recommendations by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). The results provided in the paper can be useful references for the design of reliable communication link for the Korean lunar exploration in the near future.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2004.03a
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• pp.521-523
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• 2004

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has proposed new vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft known as the Jet-VTOL aircraft shown in Fig.1. The Jet-VTOL aircraft is based on a canard wing configuration. The aircraft has the clustered lift-fans mounted near the center of gravity for vertical flight, and has the clustered fans mounted beside the vertical tail for cruise flight. Both fans are driven by the core engine mounted inside the aft end of fuselage. The propulsion system is innovative and attractive not to be seen even in the world.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.173-197
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• 2023

ShadowCam is a high-sensitivity, high-resolution imager provided by NASA for the Danuri (KPLO) lunar mission. ShadowCam calibration shows that it is well suited for its purpose, to image permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) that occur near the lunar poles. It is 205 times as sensitive as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Narrow Angle Camera (NAC). The signal to noise ratio (SNR) is greater than 100 over a large part of the dynamic range, and the top of the dynamic range is high enough to accommodate most brighter PSR pixels. The optical performance is good enough to take full advantage of the 1.7 meter/pixel image scale, and calibrated images have uniform response. We describe some instrument artifacts that are amenable to future corrections, making it possible to improve performance further. Stray light control is very challenging for this mission. In many cases, ShadowCam can image shadowed areas with directly illuminated terrain in or near the field of view (FOV). We include thorough qualitative descriptions of circumstances under which lunar brightness levels far higher than the top of the dynamic range cause detector or stray light artifacts and the size and extent of the artifact signal under those circumstances.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.11-15
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• 2017

We present the AKARI far-infrared (FIR) all-sky maps and describe its characteristics, calibration accuracy and scientific capabilities. The AKARI FIR survey has covered 97% of the whole sky in four photometric bands, which cover continuously 50-180 micron with band central wavelengths of 65, 90, 140, and 160 microns. The data have been publicly released in 2014 (Doi et al., 2015) with improved data quality that have been achieved since the last internal data release (Doi et al., 2012). The accuracy of the absolute intensity is ${\leq}10%$ for the brighter regions. Quantitative analysis of the relative intensity accuracy and its dependence upon spatial scan numbers has been carried out. The data for the first time reveal the whole sky distribution of interstellar matter with arcminute-scale spatial resolutions at the peak of dust continuum emission, enabling us to investigate large-scale distribution of interstellar medium in great detail. The filamentary structure covering the whole sky is well traced by the all-sky maps. We describe advantages of the AKARI FIR all-sky maps for the study of interstellar matter comparing to other observational data.