South Korean Space Launch Partially Successful, as Third Stage Fails to Put Satellite into Orbit

Rocket failures during testing is part of perfecting space technology. NASA, SpaceX, etc. have all had rocket failures. I am sure the ROK scientists will learn from this and correct the identified issues with the third stage of the rocket that failed to reach 7.5 km per second which is the orbital velocity needed to put a satellite into orbit:

South Korea failed to put a dummy satellite into orbit with its first homegrown space rocket Thursday, dealing a setback to the country’s decade-long project to join the elite global space club.

The KSLV-II rocket, also known as Nuri, flew to a target altitude of 700 kilometers but failed to place the 1.5-ton dummy satellite into orbit.

“The test-launch of Nuri-ho was completed. I am proud of it,” President Moon Jae-in said in a press briefing at the Naro Space Center in the country’s southern coastal village of Goheung. “Regrettably, we did not perfectly reach the goal, but we made a very creditable achievement in the first launch.” 

The failure underscores the challenges of sending a satellite into orbit, a space launch vehicle technology that South Korea has been seeking to acquire for more than a decade for its space program.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this rocket launch likely means the North Koreans are going to launch something in response in the near term. We saw that they recently launched an SLBM not long after the ROK tested theirs. I would not be surprised if North Korea attempts a space launch in the near term to try and show up the ROK.