South Korea wants its own LEO system
September 25, 2023
By Chris Forrester
South Korea’s government has outlined its plans for a 480 billion Korean won (€338m) R&D investment in low Earth orbiting (LEO) satellites as a ‘home grown’ rival to the systems from Elon Musk, Amazon’s Kuiper and OneWeb.
According to local reports, the South Korean Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) recently released a ‘Satellite Communication Activation Strategy’. The government wants to conduct a feasibility study for satellite communication research and development with the aforementioned budget.
As part of the concept the country is looking to build and export satellites and their related communications equipment and build the value of those exports to some $3 billion by 2030.
South Korea will also establish the K-LEO Alliance, a grouping of the nation’s military, government and civilian bodies, and to establish feasibility studies for medium and long-term adoption.