China, India and Japan is not the only country on the Asian continent that hopes to build its own country in the fledgling space economy. South Korea also hopes to participate in space races and even plans to build existence outside Earth’s orbit and build its own lunar base within 20 years.
At a public meeting held at the South Korean National Research Foundation on July 17, the Korea Aeronautics and Space Administration (KASA) released a roadmap proposing “five core missions, including low-Earth orbit and microgravity exploration, lunar exploration, solar energy and space science missions,” he said.
Kasa has proposed a robotic lander on the moon’s surface by 2032, but the new master plan is more ambitious, including the development of a new lunar lander by 2040 to 2040 and the lunar economic foundation by 2045.
The Republic of Korea did not start from the mountaineering field from the beginning. In mid-2022, the country launched Danuri, its first lunar probe, with SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket on top. Later that year, Danuri arrived in the moon orbit, still in operation and used its instrument kit to study the moon’s natural resources. It is also designed to test the space technology that KASA will use on future missions.
The mission is part of the first phase of South Korea’s lunar exploration program. The second phase includes the launch of the aforementioned robot module in 2032, as well as another lunar orbit and a rover weighing 20 kg. The second phase will no longer rely on SpaceX rockets or even mats on U.S. soil. Instead, the mission will be launched using the country’s KSLV-III rocket, which is still under development, located at the Naro Space Center on the southern coast of the Republic of Korea.
The South Korean Institute of Earth Science and Mineral Resources is assisting with preparations by deploying prototype lunar wanderers in abandoned coal mines to evaluate technologies that can be used for upcoming space mining missions.
My kasa is your NASA
Kasa was only recently created by the South Korean government as a domestic version of NASA in May 2024. Now it oversees the Korean Aeronautics Institute (KARI), which has handled the development of aviation technology in the country since its inception in 1989. Kari and the Republic’s National Space Research Organization, the Korean Institute of Astronomy and Space Sciences, are now sub-representatives of Kasa. With support from its new special agency and private sector, South Korea is seeking to position itself among the top five countries in space exploration.
Kasa also envisions landing a module on Mars by 2045, as well as developing probes that monitor solar activity and improve space safety, including the deployment of solar observation satellites at L4 Lagrange Point by 2035 (at the L4 Lagrange Point) (in a stable position in space, fixed in space by the tombs of the sun and the earth in place).
Of course, South Korea is not the only country that hopes to establish a lunar base or develop space economic infrastructure by the middle of this century. Through the Artemis program, NASA intends to build a lunar base over the next decade – if political conflicts do not derail the project.
China cooperates with Russia and other countries and has also set a goal of establishing a lunar base by 2045. India has also turned its attention to the moon and plans to surface from 2047 to 2047.
This story originally appeared in wired español and has been translated into Spanish.
