Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter

South Korea's first lunar orbiter successfully launched on a year-long mission to observe the Moon, Seoul said Friday, with the payload including a new disruption-tolerant network for sending data from space.Danuri — a portmanteau of the Korean words for "Moon" and "enjoy" — was on a Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida by Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX. It aims to reach the Moon by mid-December."South Korea's first lunar orbiter 'Danuri' left for space at 8:08am on August 5, 2022," Seoul's…

A Falcon 9 rocket during launch this past July. Photo: SpaceXSouth Korea is embarking on its first lunar mission,and SpaceX has been brought in to help. You can catch this historic launch live right here.Hard to believe, but the upcoming launch marks the first time that SpaceX will directly send a payload to a ballistic lunar transfer orbit. And as for South Korea, this marks its first mission to the Moon, adding itself (fingers crossed) to a very small list of nations to do so. The payload du jour is the Korea…