Fire put out at South Korea's space centre during test for next generation space rocket

SEOUL (Reuters) - Firefighters have extinguished a fire at a South Korean space centre during a test of a turbopump that feeds propellants to rocket engines, South Korea's science ministry said on Wednesday.

The fire at the Naro Space Center in the southern coastal county of Goheung on Tuesday afternoon was extinguished in about 70 minutes, the ministry said.

Some testing equipment was affected by the fire but no casualties have been reported, officials said, adding they were looking into the cause of the incident.

Tuesday's test was not related to the country's planned third launch of its domestically produced Nuri rocket in May, the ministry said.

(Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi. Editing by Gerry Doyle)