KASA: South Korea now also has a space agency
South Korea is no newcomer to space travel, but the country did not have its own space agency. That is now changing. However, KASA is not yet very big.
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South Korea now has its own space agency: the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA or 우주항공청) was founded yesterday (Monday). Its first task will be to work out a timetable for the East Asian country's space program, promote the use of reusable rockets and develop its own satellite navigation system and a lunar lander, writes the Korea Times. The aim is to send its own lander to the moon in 2032. The declared aim is also to catch up with other space nations, but the gaps are large, admitted KASA boss Yoon Young-bin.
Significantly smaller than the role models
According to the newspaper report, the establishment of the space agency was made possible by a law that was passed in January. This ensures that the various government organizations involved in space projects and policy are brought together under one roof. The space agency has an annual budget of just over 510 million euros and currently has 110 employees. The plan is to have 293 employees. This is still quite a long way from the large agencies of other countries; the German Aerospace Center, for example, has a budget of 1.4 billion euros and over 10,000 employees. NASA even spends around 25 billion euros and employs over 18,000 people.
Even though South Korea has not yet had a space agency, the country has achieved success in space travel. Its first orbiter has been circling the moon since the beginning of 2023; the prosaic name Danuri is a combination of the Korean words for "moon" and "enjoy". The device is also officially called the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO). South Korea wants to use the probe to prove that the fourth-largest Asian economy can keep up with the pioneers Japan, China and India. South Korea has also signed the Artemis Accords, which NASA is using to support the manned return to the moon program. In the second attempt, the country successfully sent its self-developed space rocket Nuri ("누리", Korean for "world") into space for the first time in 2022.
(mho)