South Korea's first attempt to put a satellite into orbit has failed. The rocket blasted off this afternoon from the country's Naro space center off its southern coast. The Science Minister is calling the mission "a partial failure."

Scientists are trying to determine what went wrong. They say they observed the satellite separate from the rocket at an altitude 36 kilometers higher than its target position. The Naro-1 rocket is the country's first carrier rocket. Russia provided technical assistance for the production. The project was initiated in 2002, and has cost over 40-million dollars. The original launch was scheduled for July the 30th, but was postponed twice due to technical flaws. The rescheduled launch for August 19th was suspended almost eight minutes before lift-off.