Last week, South Korea attempted a second launch of its new vehicle, the NARO-1. Unfortunately, this too failed to achieve orbit. To make a bad situation worse, the "blame game" has already started. The Russians have apparently stated the explosion occurred in the Korean-made second stage, while the Koreans have indicated that this happened in the Russian-made first stage.

The reality of the situation is that no one yet knows what happened or why it happened. Every statement so far appears to be speculative and politically driven. This is not a good start to finding out what really went wrong.

Looking back into the long history of launch failures, one may expect the cause of this one to be the result of a combination of minor failures in the hardware, software, testing and management processes.

While it is true that a single hardware failure can cause a complete loss of the vehicle, a more common cause is a combination of things that were unforeseen, i. e., parts not performing as expected, management decision processes, software glitches, wiring mistakes, etc. One thing is almost certain, we will never be absolutely certain what actually occurred on NARO-1.

Debris are being collected and telemetry data are being reviewed. Every member of the vehicle development group and the launch team will likely be interviewed.

Experts will go over all of the available evidence. Panels will meet and discuss possible scenarios that fit the data. And, in the final analysis one or more viable explanations will be presented. Corrective measures will be recommended to avoid any of the possible failure scenarios identified. The results will be published in a NARO-1 Failure Analysis Report.

Assuming South Korea has the will to continue the development of its own launch vehicle, the next launch attempt will surely incorporate recommended fixes. Hopefully, these corrective actions will prove successful and South Korea will establish itself as a new spacefaring nation.