South Korea's largest satellite launched on Nuri rocket in ambitious space mission

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea launched its largest satellite yet on its nationally developed space rocket early Thursday in the fourth of six launches planned through 2027.

The three-stage Nuri rocket lifted off from a spaceport on an island off the southwestern coastal county of Goheung. Aerospace officials said the rocket placed a 516-kilogram (1,137-pound) science satellite and 12 microsatellites into a target orbit about 600 kilometers (372 miles) above Earth.

The Korea Aerospace Administration said the main satellite made contact with a South Korean ground station in Antarctica about 40 minutes after liftoff at 1:55 a.m., confirming normal function and deployment of its solar panels. The satellite later established links with ground stations in South Korea’s central Daejeon city and Svalbard, Norway, as well as further contact with the King Sejong Station in Antarctica.

Five of the 12 microsatellites had contacted ground stations as of Thursday afternoon, and the rest were expected to do so in a scheduled sequence.

Kyunghoon Bae, the country’s science minister, said the successful launch reaffirmed that South Korea had independent space launch and transport capability.

He said the launch was a turning point as the first time a private company, Hanwha Aerospace, assembled the rocket under a technology transfer from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, the national space agency.

“Building on today’s success, we will steadfastly pursue the development of next-generation launch vehicles, lunar exploration and deep-space missions,” Bae said.

The main satellite launched Thursday is equipped with a wide-range airglow camera to observe auroral activity and separate systems for measuring plasma and magnetic fields and for testing how life-science experiments perform in space.

The dozen smaller “cube” satellites, developed by university teams and research institutions, include GPS systems to study Earth’s atmosphere, infrared cameras to track plastic in the oceans, and systems for testing solar cells or communication equipment.

Thursday’s event was the country’s first launch involving a Nuri rocket since May 2023, when it successfully placed a 180-kilogram (397-pound) observation satellite into orbit, and the fourth overall since its first attempt in October 2021, which failed to deliver a dummy device.

Further launches are planned in 2026 and 2027 to advance the country’s space technologies and industries, and to reduce the gap with leading Asian space powers, such as China, Japan and India.

Nuri is a three-stage rocket powered by five 75-ton-class engines in its first and second stages and a 7-ton-class engine in its third stage, which releases the payloads at the desired altitude. It’s the country’s first space launch vehicle built primarily with domestic technology, a core asset for a nation that had largely relied on other countries to launch its satellites since the 1990s.

The Naro Space Center, South Korea’s lone spaceport, saw its first successful launch in 2013 with a two-stage rocket built with Russian technology, following years of delays and repeated failures. The rocket reached its target altitude during its first test in 2009 but failed to deploy a satellite, and then exploded shortly after liftoff during its second test in 2010.

In this photo released by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, the Nuri rocket lifts off from a launch pad at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Korea, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025. (Korea Aerospace Research Institute via AP)

People watch the Nuri rocket taking off from the launch pad near the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Korea, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025. (Kim Hea-in/Yonhap via AP)

In this photo released by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, the Nuri rocket lifts off from a launch pad at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Korea, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025. (Korea Aerospace Research Institute via AP)

The Nuri rocket lifts off from a launch pad at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Korea, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025. (Kim Sung-min/Yonhap via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has privately discussed the possibility of firing Attorney General Pam Bondi and replacing her with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, three people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Thursday.

In those conversations, Trump has discussed his ongoing frustration with Bondi over her handing of the Jeffrey Epstein files and hurdles the Justice Department has encountered in investigations into Trump’s perceived enemies, the people said. The Republican president has mentioned other candidates but has raised Zeldin’s name as recently as this week, the people said.

The people were not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversations and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.

No decision has been announced, and Trump has been known to change his mind on personnel decisions.

"Attorney General Pam Bondi is a wonderful person and she is doing a good job,” Trump said in a statement produced by the White House.

Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York, has been publicly and privately praised by Trump, who at an event in February described him as “our secret weapon.”

Bondi, a former state attorney general in Florida and a Trump loyalist who was part of his legal team during his first impeachment case, has been in her position for more than a year. She came into office pledging that she would not play politics with the Justice Department, but she quickly started investigations of Trump foes, sparking an outcry that the law enforcement agency was being wielded as a tool of revenge to advance the president’s political and personal agenda.

She has also endured months of scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files that made her the target of angry conservatives even with her close relationship with Trump.

Under Bondi’s leadership, the department opened investigations into a string of Trump foes, including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan.

The high-profile prosecutions of Comey and James were quickly thrown out by a judge who ruled that the prosecutor who brought the cases was illegally appointed. Other politically charged investigations have either been rejected by grand juries or failed to result in criminal charges.

Attorney General Pam Bondi listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump walks from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)