The launch of South Korea's next-generation midsized observation satellite, slated for Saturday afternoon at a space center in Kazakhstan, has been postponed, government officials here said.

The 540-kilogram satellite, loaded on Russia's Soyuz 2.1a, was scheduled to take off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:07 p.m. (11:07 a.m. local time).

But the launch has been postponed, reportedly due to problems detected from the upper part of the carrier rocket, according to officials at the Ministry of Science and ICT.

They said Kazakh space center technicians were examining the cause of problems as well as the possibility of a new launch attempt at the same time on Sunday.

Equipped with an imaging sensor system developed by South Korean researchers, the satellite will conduct its four-year observation mission at 497.8 kilometers above the Earth's surface.

It is scheduled to provide precise observation videos of the Earth starting in October after a six-month trial run. (Yonhap)