Located in Bongnae-myeon, Goheung County, South Jeolla Province, Naro Space Center is South Korea's first space launch facility and the world's 13th space center. Built with Russian technical cooperation over nine years beginning in December 2000, during the Kim Dae-jung administration, it was completed on June 11, 2009. Spanning a total site area of 5,379,592 square meters and a total floor area of 89,001 square meters, this facility marked South Korea's first step toward acquiring its own independent space launch capability.
On August 18 of that same year, the first launch attempt of the Naro rocket took place at this site, but with just seven minutes and 56 seconds remaining before launch, an automatic shutdown was triggered by a software defect in the high-pressure tank measurement system. A week later, on August 25, the launch was reattempted and the rocket successfully lifted off, but a failure in the separation of one side of the payload fairing meant that the onboard Science and Technology Satellite 2 ultimately failed to reach its target orbit. Though not a complete success, this launch was recorded as South Korea's first attempt to launch a rocket from its own territory through a space facility built with its own resources.