KASA chief aims to put Korean in space again

At the 18th Korea Economic Forum, the chief of the Korea AeroSpace Administration, Yoon Young-bin, said a major priority is the return of a Korean into space.

Administrator Yoon Young-bin of the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) speaks at the 18th Korea Economic Forum hosted by the Korea JoongAng Daily at the Lotte Hotel Seoul in central Seoul on Thursday. [PARK SANG-MOON]

The chief of the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) cited nurturing the country's second astronaut as one of the priorities for the state-run agency devoted to space policy and exploration.

Administrator Yoon Young-bin’s goal seeks to reverse the discontinuation of the astronaut training program after Korea's first astronaut, Yi So-yeon, flew into space in April 2008 with two Russian cosmonauts to conduct various experiments.

“It has been almost two decades since we sent the first Korean astronaut into space,” Yoon said at the 18th Korea Economic Forum on Thursday. “With the establishment of Korea’s space agency this year, we plan to strengthen global cooperation, and one of our policies related to that is to foster new astronauts.”

Yoon said that the agency is “actively reviewing” plans for an astronaut training program as part of the U.S. Artemis lunar exploration program led by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Korea became the 10th country to join the project in 2021.

The program’s mission is to renew crewed expeditions to the moon, which came to a halt after Apollo 17 made the final journey in 1972. The long-term goal is to establish a permanent lunar base that will serve as the gateway for human missions to Mars.

Yoon says he hinted at the possibility of Korea becoming part of that global mission at a recent international space conference led by the Committee on Space Research, which was held in the southern port city of Busan last month. It was the first time Korea hosted the event, where a total of 3,000 space scientists from 60 countries gathered to discuss the plans of major spacefaring nations pertaining to space science.

Administrator Yoon Young-bin of the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) speaks at the 18th Korea Economic Forum hosted by the Korea JoongAng Daily at the Lotte Hotel Seoul in central Seoul on Thursday. [PARK SANG-MOON]

“We’ve engaged in bilateral meetings with delegations from the United States, Japan, China and the United Arab Emirates,” he said. “We discussed the establishment of a stronger global network and, in order to form a more tightly-knit partnership, will visit each country to form memorandums of understanding in respective industries.”

Yoon forecasts the global aerospace industry to grow at an “unprecedented rate,” and Korea must promote private-led space research and development to keep up with the trend. The administrator emphasized the growing importance of domestic space startups as the agency looks to expand the pie for the private sector, as well as their role in strengthening international space collaborations.

“The size of the global space market was 800 trillion won [$600 billion] in 2023, which is estimated to reach 2,300 trillion won in 2035,” Yoon said, citing data from the World Economic Forum. “That is an almost threefold increase, and in 20 years, it will expand to beyond what we can imagine.”

Yoon targets Korea’s market share in the global industry to reach 10 percent in the next 20 years, 10 times its current claim of 1 percent.

“To reach this goal, we plan to shift from a government-led approach to one led by the private sector. Looking at the overall industrial structure in our country, many large corporations, mid-sized enterprises and promising venture companies have a strong interest in the space sector. Thus, KASA plans to actively foster promising space venture companies.”

KASA, hailed as Korea’s version of NASA, opened its doors in Changwon, South Gyeongsang, in May as part of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s pledge to become one of the top five space powers globally by 2045. The government touted the space industry as “the most powerful future growth engine” and launched the agency in hopes of establishing a major presence as the control tower centralizing space programs, which were scattered across various divisions and agencies before.

BY LEE JAE-LIM,SEO JI-EUN [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]