science

Perigee Aerospace

Perigee Aerospace is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Perigee Aerospace rather than just read about it. In short: Perigee Aerospace is a private developer and manufacturer of orbital and sub-orbital launch vehicles located in Daejeon, South Korea. The company was formally established in 2018, but work began in 2012, initially with the launch of sounding rockets.

Key takeaways

Perigee Aerospace belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Perigee Aerospace to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Perigee Aerospace from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Perigee Aerospace is a private developer and manufacturer of orbital and sub-orbital launch vehicles located in Daejeon, South Korea. The company was formally established in 2018, but work began in 2012, initially with the launch of sounding rockets. As of 2019, Perigee Aerospace employed 30 people. It develops the small orbital rocket Blue Whale 1. As of 2019, the company also planned to develop a larger rocket.

Vehicles

Blue Whale 1

The two-stage Blue Whale 1 is a partially reusable orbital rocket in development. Launching from a sea launch pad in Jeju space center in South Korea, it can deliver up to 170 kg to a Sun-synchronous orbit with an altitude of 500 km. The maiden flight was planned for July 2020 but has been delayed several times. Perigee Aerospace hopes to build the capacity to launch up to 40 Blue Whale 1 rockets per year at a price of less than US$3 million. The orbital maiden flight of Blue Whale 1 was expected to take place in late 2024, preceded by a suborbital test flight scheduled for May 2024. The suborbital launch is now planned for 2025.

Sounding Rockets Started in 2012, Perigee Aerospace began by developing and launching numerous sounding rockets for meteorological research for the Korean government. In 2018 and 2019 the company received two rounds of venture capital backing from some of South Korea's leading technology investors including Samsung Venture Investments and LB Investment (a subsidiary of LG) to support the development of Blue Whale.The company is also supported by KAIST, South Korea's top technical research institution. According to an interview posted on the website of Expedition College in March 2020, an educational program by Dong-A Science, Perigee Aerospace was planning to launch a suborbital sounding rocket developed in collaboration with KAIST. This sounding rocket, designated Blue Whale 0.1, was launched on 29 December 2021 in order to validate the engines of the Blue Whale 1 rocket. The flight was terminated shortly after takeoff due to unexpectedly strong winds. Third flight of Blue Whale 0.1 took place on 24 March 2022 from Jeju Island. It was suborbital flight test and it was successful.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Perigee Aerospace

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Perigee Aerospace claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Perigee Aerospace before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Perigee Aerospace ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Perigee Aerospace

In research: Perigee Aerospace appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Perigee Aerospace in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Perigee Aerospace is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Aerospace companies of South Korea, Companies based in Daejeon, Private spaceflight companies, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Perigee Aerospace outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Perigee Aerospace in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Perigee Aerospace means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Perigee Aerospace out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Perigee Aerospace in simple terms?

Why does Perigee Aerospace matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Perigee Aerospace?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Perigee Aerospace.