News Summary

South Korea has set forth an ambitious plan to establish a lunar base by 2045 as part of its growing involvement in the space race. The recently formed Korean AeroSpace Administration (KASA) has outlined a roadmap that includes five core missions, such as low-Earth orbit exploration and lunar exploration. By 2032, South Korea intends to place a robotic lander on the moon, followed by the development of a new lunar lander and the construction of a lunar economic base. The country also plans to land a module on Mars by 2045 and develop probes for solar activity monitoring. KASA, created to be a domestic version of NASA, aims to position South Korea among the top nations in space exploration. The Korean Lunar Exploration Program’s first phase successfully launched the Danuri lunar probe in 2022, which continues to study the moon’s resources.