South Korea’s First Space Agency

• 31 May 2024

On May 30th, 2024, South Korea lunched the country’s first space agency which will lead the country's "space economy," with hundreds of businesses and enterprises working to catapult South Korea into the ranks of the world's top five space powers,

Key Points

• KASA will usher in a new space era by cultivating experts intensively supporting the aerospace industry ecosystem and fostering challenging and innovative R&D.
• The agency is aimed at streamlining policy and development functions shared among different government ministries and will bring under its structure the aerospace research institute that developed the Nuri and its precursor space launch vehicles.
• It is planning to make a Mars landing by 2045.
• It plans at least three more space launches by 2027 and has plans to launch military satellites.
• It has planned first lunar lander for 2032.
• South Korea became the seventh country to own an indigenous space launch vehicle and satellite development technology with the launch of the Nuri rocket in May 2023 that put a commercial grade satellite in orbit.