Korea's space agency, the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA), announced at around 2:30 p.m. on Friday that it ultimately failed to detect any signal from K-RadCube, the Korean CubeSat aboard NASA's Artemis II mission.
"The K-RadCube mission operations team continued attempts to communicate with the satellite after its first perigee passage, considering the satellite's survival probability, but was unable to detect a signal," KASA said.
The failure means K-RadCube will not carry out its mission to measure space radiation while passing through the Van Allen radiation belts in a high orbit beyond geostationary orbit — a first for a Korean satellite. However, the project holds significant meaning as multiple Korean private space companies participated in the first international crewed lunar exploration program in half a century, accumulating technical experience and expanding space exploration capabilities ahead of Korea's goal of launching a lunar lander by 2032. The two companies that built and operated K-RadCube have drawn particular attention.
