[Defense Club] The Space Market That Should Be Led by Private Companies

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu, Military Specialist Reporter] Last month, President Yoon Suk-yeol announced the ‘Future Space Economy Roadmap.’ It includes plans to start resource mining on the moon from 2032 and to advance to Mars by 2045. He stated that by 2045, the 100th anniversary of Korea’s liberation, the country aims to leap forward as a space economy powerhouse. The organization that will lead this effort is the Space Aviation Agency. Modeled after the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Space Aviation Agency will be an institution under the Ministry of Science and ICT, with its headquarters planned to be located in Sacheon, Gyeongnam.

As the government pushed for the establishment of the Space Aviation Agency, defense-related government agencies also moved quickly. They attached the word ‘space’ and flooded policies claiming participation in development. The representative agency is the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). Recently, they even opened a research center within Seoul National University to develop technology for a ‘unmanned space shuttle’ that can be launched multiple times. When an agency that manages weapons procurement projects steps forward to develop unmanned flying vehicles directly, even the defense industry raises eyebrows.

The movement of former DAPA officials toward the establishment of the Space Aviation Agency has also accelerated. Rumor has it that former DAPA officials are reaching into the political sphere, eyeing the position of agency chief. The Space Aviation Agency chief is granted autonomy over organizational composition, dissolution, and salary determination. It is a powerful authority. Moreover, with the status of the National Space Committee chairperson being elevated from the Prime Minister to the President, direct reporting to the President is also possible.

However, the space industry is no longer a state-led project. The competitiveness of advanced space nations comes from private companies. SpaceX, which started as a startup 10 years ago and has grown into the world’s number one space company, is a good example. SpaceX has successfully returned its reusable rocket ‘Falcon 9’ over 100 times by land and sea. The launch cost per kilogram of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, a reusable launch vehicle composed of three Falcon 9 rockets, is $1,680. This is about 1/20th the cost per kilogram of the single-use Nuri rocket, which is $32,595.

Private space companies are already showing prominence in various fields. Among companies dominating the low Earth orbit (400?600 km) satellite market, Europe’s ICEYE is also noteworthy. ICEYE was founded in 2014 by Finnish and Polish students. In 2018, ICEYE succeeded in launching the world’s first synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite under 100 kg, ICEYE-X1, and now owns a total of 21 satellites. It is the world’s largest operator of ultra-small SAR satellites.

ICEYE attracted market attention by providing information on Russian troop movements via satellites during the Ukraine war. Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s Minister of Defense, praised on social media, “Although we operated ICEYE’s ultra-small satellites for only two days, we discovered over 60 Russian military vehicles.”

Last year, governments worldwide spent $92.4 billion (approximately 116.66 trillion KRW) on space-related programs. Of this, private sector expenditure exceeded half at $53 billion (approximately 66.92 trillion KRW). In contrast, the Korean government’s space program budget accounts for only 0.7% of the global total, at $679 million (approximately 880.4 billion KRW).

To create private companies that will lead the global market like Elon Musk’s SpaceX or ICEYE, the government only needs to focus on technology transfer and budget support. The space market cannot be dominated by simply adding a spoonful to policies at the President’s word.