Korea launches lunar orbiter

While I imagine China has hegemonic designs on the moon (technically, no one is allowed to claim territory there, but possession is ninth-tenths of the law), South Korea is content to launch a lunar orbiter, the Danuri, via SpaceX. The news is a few days old, and I am only now learning of this. Excerpt:

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s first lunar orbiter has begun its voyage toward the moon on a mission critical to the country’s future space projects.

The 678-kilogram spacecraft, named Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) or Danuri in Korean, launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 40 at 7:08 p.m. Eastern, Aug. 4.

The Danuri orbiter is carrying six scientific instruments, including a hypersensitive optical camera, ShadowCam, provided by NASA and a “space internet” demonstrator developed by South Korea’s Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, which will validate an interplanetary internet connection using delay-disruption tolerant networking.

The orbiter was working normally and traveling on a planned trajectory toward the moon, said the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), which controls the spacecraft. It is expected to enter the moon’s orbit in December before starting a year-long observation mission. If it succeeds, South Korea will become the world’s seventh lunar explorer, after the former Soviet Union, the U.S., China, India, the European Union and Japan.

Korea won't be hegemonic the way China is, so I'm rooting for whatever scientific results come from this effort. Better a constructive space race than a toxic one.