The Korea Aerospace Exploration Agency (KASA), scheduled to be launched at the end of May, aims to realize the country's goal of participating in the global space race.
The South Korean National Assembly recently passed special bills to establish and manage a national aerospace agency, creating the necessary legal basis for KASA.
The South Korean government has drawn up a “space economy” roadmap, outlining goals for completing a lunar landing mission by 2032 and a Mars mission by 2045, with the vision of placing the Northeast Asian country among the world’s top five space technology powers.
Located in South Gyeongsang Province, Sacheon City has been chosen as the headquarters of the Korea Aerospace Agency. Attending the launching ceremony of the new space industry cluster at the headquarters of Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) in Sacheon City, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol pledged to increase the budget for space industry development to more than 1.5 trillion won (about 1.14 billion USD) by 2027. Korea's space industry triangle includes the central city of Daejeon in the north, South Gyeongsang Province in the east and South Jeolla Province in the west.
In his speech announcing the space industrial cluster, President Yoon Suk Yeol emphasized that in the near future, the powerful space powers leading the space economy will lead the world. Thereby, by promoting the exploitation of the vast potential of the space industry in many different ways, not only related to the production of satellites, launch vehicles or communication networks, many new opportunities will open up including resource exploration, space tourism, etc.
The South Korean government has drawn up a “space economy” roadmap, outlining goals for completing a lunar landing mission by 2032 and a Mars mission by 2045, with the vision of placing the Northeast Asian country among the world’s top five space technology powers.
Over the years, the administration of President Yoon Suk Yeol has been working to take the necessary steps to establish KASA, as this was one of the campaign pledges of the head of the Korean Government.
The Ministry of Science and ICT submitted the proposed bill to the National Assembly in April 2023, but it faced strong opposition from major opposition parties, which delayed its passage. South Korean lawmakers debated various aspects, such as the level of KASA's head, concerns about possible overlap in research and development areas with existing space institutes, and KASA's independence.
After more than nine months of discussion, the National Assembly of South Korea has agreed that KASA will be under the Ministry of Science and ICT and supervised by the Presidential National Space Commission. The two existing space research institutes - the Aerospace Research Institute and the Korea Institute of Space and Astronomy Science - will be merged into KASA to ensure that research and development of new technologies are not duplicated and inefficient.
The new space agency could offer annual salaries similar to those of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), estimated at 200 million to 300 million won (about $152,000 to $228,000), according to the KASA office. Science and ICT Minister Lee Jong Ho said KASA would have about 300 employees, with an annual budget of about 700 billion won.
Through the establishment of KASA, the Korean government aims to support more than 2,000 innovative companies in the aerospace sector to lead the economy and create 500,000 jobs. The scale of investment in this sector will also be significantly expanded in the future, with the goal of capturing 10% of the global aerospace market worth over US$320 billion.
According to President Yoon Suk-yeol, the Korean government will build various key infrastructures, such as civilian rocket launch sites and space environment simulation laboratories. At the same time, the government will accelerate the construction of a national industrial complex for space launch vehicles in South Jeolla Province, complete the construction of a national aerospace industrial complex in South Gyeongsang Province by the end of 2024, and establish a space technology human resource development center in Daejeon by the end of 2028.
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