South Korea’s Rocket Launch Marks Shift to Commercial Space Race

South Korea marked its first rocket launch in partnership with a private company, a milestone in the country’s bid to become a bigger player in the global space race.

The Nuri rocket lifted off at 1:13 a.m. local time Thursday from the Naro Space Center in the country’s south. A next-generation satellite established initial contact with a ground station in in Antarctica at 1:55 a.m., and all of the 12 cubesats successfully separated and landed in their target orbit at 600 km (370 miles), the space agency said.