Korea’s geostationary weather satellite Chollian-2A will be launched aboard a rocket made by Arianespace from the Guiana Space Center at Kourou in French Guiana at 5:40 a.m. on Wednesday (KST), the Korean government said on Tuesday.

The multipurpose satellite was the first geostationary one that was independently developed by Korean researchers led by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) in all development phases from design to delivery, assembly and to testing.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said that all of pre-launch checking procedures are completed.

Once in orbit around the end of December, the Chollian-2A will send four times higher-resolution color images of weather front developments and other meteorological phenomena to the ground with a faster download speed than its predecessor from next year.

The existing weather satellite Cholian-1 designed for oceanography and meteorological observation will complement the new satellite until 2020.

Korea invested 325.2 billion won ($293.2 million) in total to develop the new satellite for 8 years and 3 months.

A final countdown will begin 11 hours and 23 minutes before the launch and fueling follows 4 hours 38 minutes before the launch, with the launch sequence starting 7 minutes before the liftoff.

By Won Ho-sup and Minu Kim

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