SEOUL - SOUTH Korea will this month launch a satellite using its own rocket as part of a drive to join Asia's space race, officials said on Tuesday.

An experimental satellite weighing 100 kilograms (220 pounds) will be launched into a low earth orbit on July 30 from the Naro Space Centre in Goheung, 475 kilometres (300 miles) south of Seoul.

'It will mark the first time that South Korea will launch a satellite from its own territory, using its own launch vehicle,' Mr Park Jeong Joo, director of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, told journalists.

Only nine other countries have their own launch vehicles.

The launch will come around four months after Seoul's rival North Korea in April fired a long-range rocket for what it called a satellite launch.

Other nations said no satellite was detected in orbit and the exercise was a disguised test of a long-range Taepodong missile.

The United Nations Security Council condemned the launch and tightened sanctions, prompting Pyongyang to quit a nuclear disarmament deal and to stage its second atomic test.

Mr Park said that launch was a covert missile test. 'We can't put the North's rocket launch on a parallel with ours, which is purely for scientific and peaceful purposes,' he said.

South Korea, under a pact with the United States, is restricted to possessing military missiles with a maximum range of 300km.

The two-stage rocket was developed at a cost of some 500 billion won (S$565.9 million) through cooperation with Russia, which jointly built its first stage, Mr Park said.

The 33-metre-high rocket is scheduled to lift off between 4.40pm and 6.37pm on July 30, weather permitting, and fly south near Japan's Okinawa islands. -- AFP