South Korea to push for a lunar base and Mars missions by 2045
South Korea’s new space agency today announced a long term space exploration road map that hopes to have the nation establish by 2045 a small base on the Moon as well as a Mars orbiter and lander.
The Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA) categorizes the exploration areas into Earth, the Moon, the heliosphere, and deep space, dividing them into five major programs: low orbit and microgravity exploration, lunar exploration, solar and space science exploration, planetary system exploration, and astrophysical exploration. The roadmap presents scientific missions for each program and engineering tasks to realize them.
When South Korea established this space agency in 2024, its chief emphasized the need to encourage private enterprise. I however had doubts, noting:
If KASA maintains this approach, then South Korea’s future as a space power is bright. If instead KASA moves to control all space development, including the design and ownership of its rockets and spacecraft, then that program will be stifled, as America’s was by NASA for forty years after the 1960s space race.
In January 2025 that space agency announced policies that it said would encourage the private sector, but in reviewing the language of those policies I concluded it sounded more like a power-play by that agency to run everything.
KASA’s new road map today unfortunately confirms that analysis. Over the next two decades South Korea will have a government-controlled “space program,” not a competitive space industry.
South Korea’s new space agency today announced a long term space exploration road map that hopes to have the nation establish by 2045 a small base on the Moon as well as a Mars orbiter and lander.
The Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA) categorizes the exploration areas into Earth, the Moon, the heliosphere, and deep space, dividing them into five major programs: low orbit and microgravity exploration, lunar exploration, solar and space science exploration, planetary system exploration, and astrophysical exploration. The roadmap presents scientific missions for each program and engineering tasks to realize them.
When South Korea established this space agency in 2024, its chief emphasized the need to encourage private enterprise. I however had doubts, noting:
If KASA maintains this approach, then South Korea’s future as a space power is bright. If instead KASA moves to control all space development, including the design and ownership of its rockets and spacecraft, then that program will be stifled, as America’s was by NASA for forty years after the 1960s space race.
In January 2025 that space agency announced policies that it said would encourage the private sector, but in reviewing the language of those policies I concluded it sounded more like a power-play by that agency to run everything.
KASA’s new road map today unfortunately confirms that analysis. Over the next two decades South Korea will have a government-controlled “space program,” not a competitive space industry.
