SEOUL, July 28 (Xinhua) -- South Korea announced Friday that a South Korean multipurpose satellite was launched successfully in Russia in the afternoon.

    The satellite, which was dubbed Arirang 2, was lifted off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, about 800 km northeast of Moscow, by a Russian rocket and has successfully sent signals to the Kenya satellite telemetry station from its orbit, said the South Korean Science Ministry and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI).

    The Arirang 2 is expected to send a picture to South Korea's Daejeon ground control station around midnight from its orbit 685 km above the Earth, the ministry said.

    The Arirang 2 satellite, which is designed for geographical updates, natural resource searches and environmental observation, will operate in a low orbit of 685 km from the earth and send high-resolution pictures of the earth's surface to South Korea.

    According to local reports, local companies and Israel's Electro Optical Industries Ltd. jointly developed the high-resolution, multispectral camera equipped on the satellite, which has a resolution of 1 square meter that can distinguish individual cars on the ground.

    The KARI said the satellite will travel 6.8 km a second and circle the globe more than 14 times a day.

    South Korea launched the Arirang 1 satellite, which has a camera resolution that can distinguish buildings, in 1999.

    Arirang 2 is the 9th South Korean satellites currently operating in space.

    Following the Arirang 2, the KARI said South Korea will move forward with its space program that envisions sending 13 satellites into space by 2010.

    Under the program, South Korea is expected to complete the construction of a rocket center in Goheung on the country's south coast next year and use a locally-built rocket to send a 100-kg mini satellite into orbit.

    South Korea plans to launch the Arirang 3, which is likely to be equipped with a camera with a resolution of about 70 cm, next year and the Arirang 5, which will be equipped with a radar imaging device that can detect developments on the Earth's surfaceat night and in bad weather, in 2008. Enditem