The Korean CubeSat K-RadCube, launched together with the U.S. crewed lunar exploration mission Artemis II, failed to establish normal communications a day after liftoff.
The Korea AeroSpace Administration and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) on the 3rd announced initial operations results for K-RadCube, saying they succeeded in receiving the satellite's signal in some passes but did not achieve normal communications, including securing observation data.
K-RadCube was launched with Artemis II at 7:35 a.m. on the 2nd, Korea time, and separated at an altitude of about 40,000 km at 12:58 p.m. the same day. Afterward, the Korea AeroSpace Administration attempted initial communications using overseas ground station antennas.
The first signal was detected around 2:30 p.m. on the 2nd at the Maspalomas ground station in Spain. Then at 9:57 p.m. the same day, the ground station in Hawaii in the United States received abnormal telemetry information from the satellite. Telemetry shows the satellite's status, and it was determined that the data expected to be received initially did not come in properly.
This reception occurred at a distance of about 68,000 km from the satellite. The Korea AeroSpace Administration said that excluding the roughly 1.5 million km reception case of the lunar orbiter Danuri, this is the farthest distance at which a satellite signal has been received by Korea.
The problem is that it remains unclear whether the mission has been carried out since then. K-RadCube was designed to fly along an elliptical orbit reaching up to 70,000 km in altitude and conduct a maneuver to raise its altitude at perigee, but it has not yet been confirmed whether that mission succeeded. If the altitude increase did not occur, the satellite could reenter Earth's atmosphere and disintegrate.
The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) is not completely ruling out the satellite's survivability and, together with operating agencies KT SAT and Nara Space, plans to continue initial operations and additional communication attempts until 12:30 p.m. on the 4th.
K-RadCube's core objective is to measure space radiation in Earth's Van Allen radiation belts by altitude during the crewed lunar exploration process. Semiconductor devices from Samsung Electronics and SK hynix were also onboard to verify operation in the high-orbit radiation environment.
Kang Gyeong-in, head of space science exploration at the Korea AeroSpace Administration, said, "Through international cooperation with NASA, K-RadCube, mounted on Artemis II, became the first case in Korea to receive a signal beyond geostationary orbit," adding, "It is significant that a CubeSat with private-sector participation accompanied an international crewed exploration mission, but it is regrettable that we could not secure observation data."