South Korea Plans Mars Landing in 2045

30 May 2024, South Korea, Sacheon-si: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol delivers a speech during an opening ceremony of the temporary headquarters of the Korea AeroSpace Administration in Sacheon. Photo: YNA/dpa
30 May 2024, South Korea, Sacheon-si: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol delivers a speech during an opening ceremony of the temporary headquarters of the Korea AeroSpace Administration in Sacheon. Photo: YNA/dpa
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South Korea Plans Mars Landing in 2045

30 May 2024, South Korea, Sacheon-si: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol delivers a speech during an opening ceremony of the temporary headquarters of the Korea AeroSpace Administration in Sacheon. Photo: YNA/dpa
30 May 2024, South Korea, Sacheon-si: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol delivers a speech during an opening ceremony of the temporary headquarters of the Korea AeroSpace Administration in Sacheon. Photo: YNA/dpa

South Korea plans to make a Mars landing by 2045 and spend 100 trillion won ($72.6 billion) until then on space exploration, President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Thursday at the launch of the country's first space agency.
The Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA) will lead the country's "space economy," with hundreds of businesses and enterprises working to catapult South Korea into the ranks of the world's top five space powers, Reuters quoted Yoon as saying.
"KASA will usher in a new space era by cultivating experts while intensively supporting the aerospace industry ecosystem and fostering challenging and innovative R&D," Yoon said. The country's first lunar lander is planned for 2032.
South Korea became the seventh country to own an indigenous space launch vehicle and satellite development technology with the launch of the Nuri rocket in May last year that put a commercial grade satellite in orbit.
The agency is aimed at streamlining policy and development functions shared among different government ministries and will bring under its structure the aerospace research institute that developed the Nuri and its precursor space launch vehicles.
South Korea plans at least three more space launches by 2027 and has plans to launch military satellites.
Yoon's announcement highlights the increasing efforts Asian nations are putting into space programs for practical reasons, such as honing rocket technology, and to bolster national pride.
On Monday, North Korea launched a rocket but failed to put its second military spy satellite in orbit, which it blamed on a new type of engine failing. But one expert noted the attempt as a "huge leap" in the heavily sanctioned country's race for space.
South Korea, Japan and the United States condemned the North's launch as violating UN Security Council resolutions banning it from developing ballistic missile technology.
China's space program has developed heavy-lift rockets such as the Long March 5, the Tiangong space station, unmanned moon probes and the rover Zhurong that reached Mars in 2021.
In January, Japan became the fifth country to place a lander on the moon. Last year, India became the fourth nation to land on the moon, after Russia failed in an attempt the same month.
Japan also plans a rover mission to Mars.



How Did a Jet Flip Upside Down on a Toronto Runway and Everyone Survive?

A Delta Air Lines plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport is seen on February 18, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images/AFP)
A Delta Air Lines plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport is seen on February 18, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images/AFP)
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How Did a Jet Flip Upside Down on a Toronto Runway and Everyone Survive?

A Delta Air Lines plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport is seen on February 18, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images/AFP)
A Delta Air Lines plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport is seen on February 18, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images/AFP)

Investigators are probing the causes of an unusual plane crash at Canada's largest airport on Monday, when a regional jet flipped upside down upon landing during windy weather, sending 21 of the 80 people on board to hospital.

Video shows the Delta Air Lines plane belly up and missing its right wing at Toronto's Pearson Airport, and of the crash that involved no fatalities, circulated widely on social media. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said on Tuesday that parts of the plane -- a Bombardier-made CRJ900 -- separated after impact and the fuselage came to rest slightly off the right side of the runway, upside down, facing the other direction.

The TSB said it is too early to know what happened and why. Here is what we know about this accident and similar crashes.

HOW DOES A PLANE LAND UPSIDE DOWN?

US aviation safety expert Anthony Brickhouse said aircraft are normally designed to land first on the two main landing gear, and then the nose gear. While the cause of the accident is unclear, the type of impact on the runway likely damaged the landing gear, leaving the plane imbalanced.

Brickhouse said that the plane ending up pointing in the opposite direction speaks to the amount of force and speed that led it to change direction.

"With all the forces and everything going on, if that wing is not there to support the aircraft it's going to go over," Brickhouse said. "It's not something that we see regularly, but when structures start failing, they can't do their job and the aircraft is going to react to the different forces on it."

HOW DID EVERYONE SURVIVE?

Passengers say they were hanging upside down in their seats after the crash.

"All of the passengers were wearing the safety belts. This prevented more serious injuries from occurring," said Mitchell Fox, director of the Asia Pacific Center for Aviation Safety.

Airplane seats are designed to withstand the force of 16 times the normal pull of gravity, or 16Gs, in a crash, whereas wings and fuselage are designed to handle 3-5Gs.

"In an impact-survivable crash, it's more important for the seats to hold up, giving passengers the best chance of survival," said Raj Ladani, a program manager for aerospace engineering at Australia's RMIT University. Good evacuation is key to air accident survivability, as witnessed last year when all 379 people escaped a burning Japan Airlines plane after a runway collision.

"The crew did a remarkable job of evacuating all of the passengers expeditiously," Fox said of the Delta crash.

HAS THIS HAPPENED BEFORE?

While rare, there have been cases of large jets flipping over on landing, including three accidents involving McDonnell Douglas' MD-11 model.

In 2009, a FedEx freighter turned over on landing in windy conditions on the runway at Tokyo's Narita airport, killing both pilots. The left wing was broken and separated from the fuselage attaching point and the airplane caught fire.

In 1999, a China Airlines flight inverted at Hong Kong while landing during a typhoon. The plane touched down hard, flipped over and caught fire, killing three of 315 occupants.

In 1997, another FedEx freighter flipped over at Newark in the United States, with no fatalities.

Brickhouse said it is too early to draw any conclusions from these earlier cases, especially as the MD-11 is a three-engine aircraft and the CRJ900 has two engines mounted toward the back of the aircraft, producing different flight dynamics.

HOW WILL THE INVESTIGATION PROCEED?

Unlike other investigations in which parts of the plane have gone missing, and there are mass fatalities, investigators will be able to interview all 76 passengers and four crew.

Investigators have access to the fuselage and wing, which are on the runway, and the black boxes -- the flight data and cockpit voice recorders -- have been sent for analysis.

"This is going to be a textbook investigation," Brickhouse said. "Some accidents, a lot of the pieces of the puzzle are missing. But right now looking at this accident, all the puzzle pieces are there. It's just you piecing them back together at this point."