Science

CAS500-3

Space Science / Microgravity Biotechnology · KARI / Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA)

CAS500-3 was launched in the middle of the night on purpose. South Korea's homegrown Nuri rocket lifted off from Naro Space Center at 1:13 a.m. on November 27, 2025 — the country's first late-night launch — because this satellite's instruments are so sensitive to light that the launch was timed to keep sunlight from washing them out. Unlike its two siblings, CAS500-3 doesn't photograph the ground at all. It carries a wide-field camera that watches auroras and the faint glow of the upper atmosphere, a monitor measuring the plasma and magnetic fields wrapped around Earth, and — most unusually — a 3D bioprinter, testing whether stem cells can be grown in printed tissue in orbit. It was the main payload of Nuri's fourth flight, released about 370 miles up alongside 12 CubeSats, and its first contact came through Korea's King Sejong research station in Antarctica. Two weeks later, Korea's new space agency reported that everything aboard was working.