Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter: mission and targets

Project start

August 4, 2022

Declared end

December 31, 2030

The start the archive declares is the start of the project, not the launch, and an end it does not declare does not mean the mission is still running.

Targets you can open in 3D:

• Earth
• Moon

A declared target is what the archive files the mission’s data under, not a record of observation.

Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), or Danuri (다누리), is the first Korea robotic lunar probe expected to carry out a lunar observation mission at a nominal orbiting altitude of ~100 km from the Moon. It is a cooperative project between the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), which will oversee the system, main body of the orbiter, and ground station, and a Korea university, research institutes, and NASA supporting the payloads, deep space communication, and navigation technology. The KPLO spacecraft consists of the main body of the orbiter, propulsion systems, tracking systems, three communications antennae, two solar arrays, and six payloads. The KPLO project involves mapping the lunar environment, technology demonstrations for planetary exploration, international cooperation, and establishing a deep-space network. The KPLO mission is a large portion of phase one of the Korea Lunar Exploration Program (KLEP) and Korea's exciting journey into space exploration.

Quoted in English, as the archive publishes it, read on October 4, 2026.

Identifier in the archive, which is its citation: urn:kari:kpds:context:investigation:mission.kplo

NASA Planetary Data System, PDS Registry, investigation context products. Dates and targets read on September 29, 2026; how to cite the archive: https://pds.nasa.gov/datastandards/citing/

All missions