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BAIKONUR, July 16 (Itar-Tass) — The third launch of the South Korean KSLV-1 rocket booster with Russia’s first stage booster will be held in August or September 2012, director general of the Khrunichev State Research and Space Centre Vladimir Nesterov said.
Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, Nesterov said the South Korean rocket booster where the universal rocket module is used as the first stage (due to be installed in the Angara rocket) would be launched in compliance with the contract.
“The booster may be launched in August or September 2012,” the official said, adding corresponding authorisation documents were indispensable in order to launch the booster.
Commenting on the reasons for the failure of the first and second launches, Nesterov said he could not talk about them because “there is an agreement on confidential information”.
At present, “a joint independent commission is working. It will make public the results in due time”, Nesterov stressed.
Initially the KSLV-II was to have consisted of a Russian Angara first stage and a South Korean liquid-propellant second stage. In August 2006 it was reported in the Korean press that this configuration had been cancelled. At that time, the Korean press reported that the KSLV-III first and second stages would both be Angara-UM modules, with RD-151 engines. The configuration was never entirely clear, but was probably side-by-side rather than stacked.