South Korea sets 7 October for Nuri’s fifth flight with 15 satellites

The Korea AeroSpace Administration set 7 October 2026 for the fifth launch of the Nuri rocket, also called KSLV-II. Liftoff from Naro Space Center in Goheung is planned between 12:23 p.m. and 1:23 p.m. local time. The exact minute will be chosen on the day to match the small-satellite constellation’s orbit. Backup dates run from 8 to 14 October if weather or hardware intervenes.

The payload is the largest Nuri has flown: 15 satellites. Five are NEONSAT earth-observation spacecraft, designated NEONSAT-2 through NEONSAT-6, built by KAIST’s Satellite Technology Research Center. Each is a microsatellite under 100 kilograms, produced as a batch rather than as one-off engineering models. Ten CubeSats from industry, universities and research institutes fill out the stack. KASA administrator Oh Tae-seok said the flight will be South Korea’s first attempt to place a satellite constellation on orbit.

The flight record

Nuri first flew on 21 October 2021 and failed to put a 1.5-tonne dummy satellite into orbit. The second flight, in June 2022, succeeded with a Performance Verification Satellite and a dummy mass. The third, in May 2023, carried a next-generation small satellite and seven CubeSats. The fourth, in November 2025, put 13 satellites into space. A fifth flight was originally discussed for June 2026, then August, then October, after thrusters on some nanosatellite payloads missed specification. Formation-flying constellations need those thrusters to hold relative position. Slipping the date was the conservative choice.

Launch-pad and tracking checks at Naro are complete, KASA said after the first Launch Management Committee meeting on 27 August at its Sacheon headquarters. Vehicle assembly is under way. The satellites are in function tests at the centre. The target orbit is sun-synchronous, the usual path for an earth-observation cluster that wants repeat lighting conditions.

Why 15 matters

South Korea is trying to move from handmade national satellites such as the Arirang and CAS500 series to repeated builds that can scale toward a larger broadband or reconnaissance constellation. NEONSAT-2 to 6 are the first mass-produced batch in that shift, using commercial parts. If they work, the next conversation is hundreds of units. If a thruster or a bus fails on orbit, the batch model takes a public hit on the same day the launch vehicle is trying to look routine.

Hanwha is being positioned as the industrial operator for later Nuri flights as the Space Act opens batch licensing from February 2027. This October mission is still a KASA-run flight. It is the rehearsal for that hand-off: a record stack, a noon window, a seven-day backup strip, and a first constellation.

Goheung sits 473 kilometres south of Seoul on the southern coast. The one-hour window is narrow by some commercial standards and wide enough for a constellation insertion that cares about the exact ascending node. Oh called the mission a step up in both Nuri’s tasking and the country’s space-transport capacity. The measurable test is simpler. Fifteen objects should appear in the catalogue after the upper stage is done. Five of them should then start flying as a set.