Seoul - South Korea has completed work on its first space centre with its own satellite launch pad on an island off the country's southern coast, President Lee Myung Bak announced Thursday. The Naro space centre is to be the site of the launch of a rocket carrying a small research satellite at the end of July.
Speaking at an opening ceremony at the site, Lee said that his government plans for South Korea to possess one of the world's seven leading space programmes within the next 10 years.
According to South Korea's Ministry of Science, the space centre was built for more than 310 billion won (247 million dollars) on an area of around 5 million square metres.
The installation, which took four and a half years to complete, will include a satellite test centre, a flight simulator and facilities for the building and testing of rockets.
The rocket, dubbed either KSLV-1 or Naro-1, is to be launched on July 30. It was built with the technological support of Russia. Since 1992, South Korea has put 11 satellites into orbit from foreign launch pads.
On April 5, neighbouring North Korea claimed to have launched a satellite rocket into orbit, which was widely regarded as a cover for a ballistic missile test.
