Monitoring Desk 

SEOUL: South Korea on Tuesday has successfully launched its homegrown space rocket, local media said.

The 200-ton Nuri, also known as KSLV-II, blasted off from the Naro Space Center in the country's southern coastal village of Goheung at 4 p.m. and successfully completed its flight sequence, Yonhap News Agency cited the Ministry of Science and ICT said.

According to Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), Nuri's first stage rocket separated 123 seconds after launch at an altitude of 62 kilometers, followed by its fairing and second stage rocket separations at altitudes of 202 kilometers and 273 kilometers, respectively.

"All phases of the launch proceeded normally" and that the satellites were deployed "at exactly the intended altitude and speed,” the agency quoted Lee Sang-ryool, head of KARI as saying,

KARI also confirmed that the satellite made its first communication with S. Korea's King Sejong Station in Antarctica some 40 minutes after the launch.

"We have arrived at a monumental moment not just in South Korea's science technology history but for South Korea's history as well," Science Minister Lee Jong-ho said in a briefing at Naro Space Center.

This was the second launch of South Korea as, In October, Nuri successfully flew to its target altitude of 700 kilometers but failed to put a dummy satellite into orbit, as its third-stage engine burned out earlier than expected.

South Korea has become the seventh country in the world to develop a space launch vehicle that can carry a more than 1-ton satellite, after Russia, the United States, France, China, Japan and India, according to the report.