Its leaders have charted a path to make the country the fourth space power in Asia and the seventh in the world

Korea enters new space race to fly its flag on the moon

photo_camera PHOTO/Reuters - South Korean President Moon Jae-in (right) has set his sights on boosting his space sector and reaching the moon while North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is dedicated to ruling the country he inherited with an iron fist

President Moon Jae-in has just defined the route that South Korea will follow to "enter with a firm step" in the new space race, follow the path of China, India and Japan and turn the country into the fourth space power in Asia and one of the top seven in the world in ten years.

While North Korean leader Kim Jong-un devotes much of his resources to buying and developing weapons systems and ruling with an iron fist, Moon Jae-in is determined to actively boost national space activities, to which end he will devote a budget of $553.1 million to satellite, launcher and key equipment programmes by 2021.

The Seoul government's main aspiration is "to achieve our dream of landing on the moon by 2030 with our own launch vehicle," Moon Jae-in said on 25 March, in his first speech devoted entirely to space since becoming president of the Republic of Korea in May 2017. 

El Gobierno de Seúl pretende posar en 2030 un módulo de superficie en la Luna. A modo de avanzadilla, una astronave será colocada el año próximo alrededor de nuestro satélite natural para comenzar los estudios

The first stage of the Moon exploration aspirations announced by President Moon was to confirm that the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter spacecraft will be launched into space in 2022, which will orbit the Moon to map potential landing sites for the lunar module planned for 2030 and search for deposits of water ice, aluminium, helium-3, silicon and uranium.

The mission is scheduled to fly to the moon in August next year. But in the absence of a Korean launcher still under development, liftoff will be from the United States - South Korea's main ally - on a Falcon 9 rocket from tycoon Elon Musk's SpaceX company.

En su visita del 25 de marzo al Centro Espacial Naro, en la costa sur del país, el presidente Moon Jae-in fue informado de los progresos alcanzados en lanzadores y en los desafíos que presenta su puesta a punto
State technology for the private sector

Moon has stressed the key role he will give to the private sector in strengthening the international competitiveness of the Korean space industry, which has contributions from world-class companies such as Samsung, LG, Kia, Hyundai and Korea Aerospace Industries.

In this regard, the President has ordered the technology developed by state research institutes to be transferred "in stages" to the private sector, while "intensifying" the construction of an "innovative industrial ecosystem" to supply equipment to and collaborate with the world's leading space companies.

Other strategic goals it has announced include building an experimental network of 6G communications platforms, a Korean-engineered satellite navigation and positioning system - which it sees as essential to power its autonomous vehicle and drone sectors - and several constellations of nano-satellites dedicated to strengthening national defence and safeguarding its independence from North Korea.

Corea ha emplazado en órbita desde 1992 un total de 17 satélites de diferentes categorías y pesos, de los que ocho están operativos y nueve fuera de servicio

In the very short term, the main efforts of Korea and its space agency KARI (Korea Aerospace Research Institute) are to complete the development of the Nuri or KSLV-2 rocket, whose maiden demonstration flight is scheduled for October. It is the country's first domestically developed three-stage, solid-fuel rocket-engine-powered vector capable of carrying a satellite of up to 1.5 tonnes into low Earth orbit.

Korea had been unable to penetrate solid-fuel engine technology because of an agreement with the United States restricting their use and manufacture, a limitation that was lifted a few years ago. Korea's launch vehicles take off from the Naro Space Centre, located in the far south of the country, 485 kilometres from Seoul. This is where the nation's main space capabilities are concentrated.

El satélite de observación de 500 kilos CAS500-1 ha sido el último en viajar al espacio. Fue el 22 de marzo desde el cosmódromo de Baikonur, junto al nano satélite 3B5GSat del operador español Sateliot
Veteran space country

Managed by KARI, the Naro Space Centre houses two launch ramps, a flight control and tracking room, launcher assembly and satellite integration facilities, as well as test and test equipment. President Moon Jae-in has also decided to open the doors of the restricted launch sector to private enterprise and has assured that he will build a site for their activities in Naro.

The Republic of Korea is not a newcomer to the space sector. Since 1992, it has placed a total of 17 owned satellites of different categories and weights, both domestically and foreign-made, in space. Of these, nine are out of service and eight are operational around the earth, performing functions related to telecommunications, earth observation and environmental monitoring.

The latest to be placed in space was launched just a few days ago. It is the 500-kilogram CAS500-1 remote sensing platform, which is in orbit at an altitude of about 500 kilometres and is functioning properly. The first in a series of two, it was launched from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome on 22 March by a Russian Soyuz-2 rocket, the same rocket that put into space the Spanish operator Sateliot's 3B5GSat nano-satellite, which the autonomous government of Catalonia tried to pass off as its own under the name Enxaneta.

Corea y España mantienen excelentes relaciones en todos los órdenes. Los Reyes Felipe VI y Leticia visitaron el país asiático en octubre de 2019 para reforzar más los intercambios y el grado de cooperación entre las dos naciones

The importance Korea attaches to its space sector is such that Moon Jae-in has announced that Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun will assume the presidency of the National Space Committee. With this measure, he hopes to strengthen coordination between public and private institutions and turn the country into one of the seven leading space powers in the world.

Spain and Korea have very different economies but very similar data in terms of GDP and per capita income, although trade is in deficit for Spain. With a surface area of close to 100,000 km² -equivalent to the sum of the Autonomous Communities of Castilla-León and the Balearic Islands-, but with a population of around 52 million inhabitants -which exceeds Spain's by 10 million-, the efficient and rapid measures applied by the Korean authorities to limit the spread of COVID-19 have ensured that contagions are much lower than in most European countries.

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