South Korea plans to build a base on the moon

China, India e Japan is not the only countries of the Asian continent that try to establish themselves in the nascent spatial economy. South Korea also wants to be in the race for space and even plan a presence beyond the earth’s orbit, with the ambitions to create its own lunar base within 20 years.

During a public meeting held at the National Research Foundation of Korea on July 17, the South Korean aerospace administration (KASA) published a roadmap that proposes “five main missions, including the low -earth orbit and the exploration of microgravity, lunar exploration and solar and spatial science missions” shown.

Kasa had already proposed Place a robotic lander on the lunar surface by 2032, but the new general plan is much more ambitious, including the development of a new lunar Lander by 2040, as well as the construction of a lunar economic base by 2045.

The Republic of Korea is not starting from scratch in the field of lunar exploration. In the middle of 2022, the country was launched DanuriHis first lunar probe, aboard a Spacex Falcon 9 rocket. Danuri reached the lunar orbit later that year and is still in operation, studying the natural resources of the moon with his suite of tools. It also aims to test the space technology that will be used by Kasa in future missions.

This mission was part of the first phase of the Korean lunar exploration program. Phase two includes the launch in 2032 of the aforementioned robotic module, as well as another lunar orbiter and a rover that weighs 20 kilograms. This second phase will no longer rely on a Spacex rocket or even a bearing on the United States ground; Rather, the mission will be launched using the country’s KSLV-III rocket, which is still being developed, by the Naro Space Center, located on the southern coast of the Republic of Korea.

The Korea Institute of Geosciences and Mineral Resources is helping with preparations by implementing Lunar Rover Prototype in the abandoned coal mines to evaluate the technologies that could be used in the next space mining activities.

My Kasa is your NASA

Kasa was created only recently, in May 2024, by the South Korean government, as the national version of NASA. Now supervises the Aerospace Research Institute (Kari) Korea, which has managed the development of the country’s aerospace technologies since its institution in 1989. Both Kari and National Space Research Organization of the Republic, Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, are now sub-agencies of Kasa. With its new special agency and the support of the private sector, South Korea is trying to position themselves among the first five countries in the field of exploration of space.

Kasa also plans to land a module on Mars in 2045, as well as the development of probes to monitor solar activity and improve the safety of space, including, by 2035, the deployment of a solar observation satellite at the L4 Lagrange point (a stable position in the space in which small objects are kept in place by the gravitational forces of the sun and the earth).

South Korea, of course, is not the only country that tries to build a lunar base by the middle of this century or to develop spatial economy infrastructures. Through the Artemis program, NASA intends to establish a lunar base in the next decade: political conflicts do not derail that project.

China, in collaboration with Russia and other countries, has also set the aim of building a lunar base by 2045. India also has its objectives on the moon, with plans for its base on the surface by 2047.

This story originally appeared on Wired en español And it was translated by the Spaniard.