South Korean rocket startup Perigee signs deal to launch from the Philippines
The South Korean rocket startup Perigee yesterday signed an agreement with the government of the Philippines, allowing it to launch its proposed suborbital and orbital Blue Whale rockets from a sea platform within that country’s territorial waters.
The Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA), together with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA), Ascend International Gateway, Inc., and … Perigee Aerospace, Inc. signed a Memorandum of Understanding … to collaborate on a framework for rocket development training and experimental rocket launches in the Philippines. These initiatives will demonstrate the viability of the establishment and operation of a Philippine spaceport, with the goal of positioning the country as a gateway to space in the region.
…The agreement builds on the rocket technology know-how transfer and training program undertaken by PhilSA engineers in the Republic of Korea from October to November 2025, in collaboration with Perigee Aerospace. The program equipped the engineers with foundational and applied knowledge in launch vehicle systems through lectures and hands-on experience in rocket assembly and testing. These initiatives lay the groundwork for future activities, including possible localized assembly, testing, and launch operations in the Philippines.
The first four entities listed above are all government agencies in the Philippines. Apparently Perigee is providing training and aid to the Philippines in exchange for the right to launch from within that country. It website states the suborbital version of Blue Whale will launch from a sea platform, but the launch site for the orbital version is unclear.
This deal however sets the stage for possibly developing a land-based spaceport in the Philippines. As shown by the map to the right, the country is well situated for such purposes, with a lot of eastern coastline facing the vast Pacific ocean. A spaceport located on its southernmost island of Mindanao would be especially well placed.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The South Korean rocket startup Perigee yesterday signed an agreement with the government of the Philippines, allowing it to launch its proposed suborbital and orbital Blue Whale rockets from a sea platform within that country’s territorial waters.
The Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA), together with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA), Ascend International Gateway, Inc., and … Perigee Aerospace, Inc. signed a Memorandum of Understanding … to collaborate on a framework for rocket development training and experimental rocket launches in the Philippines. These initiatives will demonstrate the viability of the establishment and operation of a Philippine spaceport, with the goal of positioning the country as a gateway to space in the region.
…The agreement builds on the rocket technology know-how transfer and training program undertaken by PhilSA engineers in the Republic of Korea from October to November 2025, in collaboration with Perigee Aerospace. The program equipped the engineers with foundational and applied knowledge in launch vehicle systems through lectures and hands-on experience in rocket assembly and testing. These initiatives lay the groundwork for future activities, including possible localized assembly, testing, and launch operations in the Philippines.
The first four entities listed above are all government agencies in the Philippines. Apparently Perigee is providing training and aid to the Philippines in exchange for the right to launch from within that country. It website states the suborbital version of Blue Whale will launch from a sea platform, but the launch site for the orbital version is unclear.
This deal however sets the stage for possibly developing a land-based spaceport in the Philippines. As shown by the map to the right, the country is well situated for such purposes, with a lot of eastern coastline facing the vast Pacific ocean. A spaceport located on its southernmost island of Mindanao would be especially well placed.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Historically speaking, Mindanao is not the most stable place to locate a spaceport.
I’m curious to see what locations offshore that Perigee is looking at to deploy its sea launch platform. Probably off the east coast of Mindanao — but I’d still be curious to know exactly where.
Obviously that is a separate question from whatever shore based spaceport the Phillipine government may be thinking about establishing.
In Mindanao you’re dealing with the Autonomous Muslim region, ie another set of government (albeit pseudo-government) entities to deal (bribe) with. Still possible, but it would be a complication.
The Muslim Autonomous Region is on the western side of the island though, isn’t it?
That doesn’t mean they’ll stay there.
I wouldn’t even risk an Estes pad
Richard M,
Robert is certainly right that Mindanao looks to be the best place in the Philippines for a spaceport based strictly on geographic considerations – presumably somewhere along the island’s east coast. I note that the block quote in Robert’s post mentions one of the involved parties as being the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA). And there is a city on Mindanao named Cagayan de Oro. But this city is located on the northwest shore of Mindanao and is, in any case, not the Cagayan of the entity referenced in the block quote. The CEZA entity controls the Cagayan Special Economic Zone and Free Port (CSEZFP) which has an area of 54,000 hectares. But it is located on the western side of a peninsula that sticks out of the northeastern part of Luzon, not Mindanao. The province of which this peninsula is a part is called Cagayan. The peninsula has an east-facing coastline but I don’t know if the CSEZFP extends far enough east to include any of it. The CSEZFP, itself, apparently sits somewhere between the municipalities of Gonzaga and Santa Ana – I couldn’t find a map that shows its exact location or boundaries.
Perhaps, even with this less-than-ideal-seeming location, the CSEZFP has little or no population to its east – which could make overflights by rockets acceptable. Or, if not, then someone is going to get risk getting bowbed if rockets start flying overhead – especially rockets early in their development/operations histories. Perhaps it’s always bowb your buddy day in the Philippines as well as in the Mobile Infantry (Harry Harrison’s Mobile Infantry, that is, not Heinlein’s).
Anent Mindanao, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) is a recent replacement for the previous Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. It’s really still in the very early days of being a thing. It includes a decent chunk of southwestern Mindanao as well as most or all of several much smaller islands to the west of Mindanao. The BARMM seems to have about the same relationship to the rest of the Philippines as Scotland does to the rest of the UK – a separate British-style parliament, for example. BARMM-y. :)
None of BARMM’s territory seems well-suited for spaceport use. If anyone built a spaceport on a suitable piece of Mindanaoan real estate – eastward facing – I imagine the Muslims would be quickly sniffing around after a “fair share” of the jobs involved and perhaps making additional demands.
If one did not wish to build a spaceport quite so far north as northern Luzon but also wished to avoid Muslim complications on Mindanao, a good split-the-difference location would seem to be Samar – though I have no idea what the state of infrastructure is there.