South Korea Merges Space and Defense Ambitions After Fifth Nuri Launch
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has ordered a sharp expansion of investment in rockets and satellites, arguing that both have become core military assets. Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday after a briefing on the fifth successful launch of the Nuri rocket, Lee said launch vehicles and satellites are closely tied to national defense and asked ministries to review a major increase in spending, the Seoul Economic Daily reported.
Satellites are likely to become core military assets, Lee said, pointing to the war in Ukraine, where disputes between Washington and Kyiv over access to surveillance data and satellite communications showed how decisively space systems can shape a battlefield. He questioned whether one launch a year is enough, asked whether more money could speed development, and noted gaps in the country’s launch schedule after 2028.
The Nuri rocket lifted off on Oct. 7 from the Naro Space Center in Goheung, placing five NeonSat microsatellites into orbit at once, a first for South Korea, and doing so at the scheduled time, also a first. It was the rocket’s fourth consecutive success after a failed debut in 2021, a record of four successes in five flights. Hanwha Aerospace, the program’s prime integrator, expanded its role from manufacturing into launch operations. A sixth flight is planned for the second half of next year, with at least one launch a year planned through 2032.
Eyes and Ears Have Become Weapons
Space and defense are merging because modern warfare runs through orbit. Reconnaissance satellites find targets, communications satellites carry orders, and navigation satellites guide precision weapons. The eyes and ears above the battlefield have become weapons in their own right.
The same companies build both. Hanwha Aerospace makes the K9 self-propelled howitzer and the Chunmoo rocket launcher while integrating the Nuri rocket. Its affiliate Hanwha Systems built the radar payloads for the military’s 425 reconnaissance satellites. LIG Nex1 works on missiles and satellite payloads alike. Both industries also share the same customer. Governments buy the products, security logic sets the budgets, and exports move through government-to-government negotiations.
On the defense side, South Korea is already a global player. Defense News ranked Hanwha 16th among the world’s defense companies, with $10.4 billion in defense revenue, followed by LIG Nex1 at 52nd, Hyundai Rotem at 61st and Korea Aerospace Industries at 74th. The four companies hold a combined order backlog above 120 trillion won, about $90 billion. Their edge is delivery speed. Equipment that takes Western makers two to three years to deliver often ships from South Korea in six months to a year.
The Weakness Is Launch Cadence
The satellite side has a different problem, and it is not engineering skill. South Korea’s 425 military reconnaissance constellation, one optical satellite and four radar satellites that can image the Korean Peninsula regardless of weather or daylight and revisit it four to six times a day, was completed late last year. Follow-on programs aim for some 130 low-orbit reconnaissance satellites by the early 2030s.
Yet all five 425 satellites, and the Danuri lunar orbiter before them, rode American SpaceX rockets to orbit. With Nuri flying once a year, satellites that had to launch on schedule chose the provider that could guarantee the date. By comparison, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 alone launched 165 times in 2025.
The government now has an answer on paper. The Korea AeroSpace Administration told the cabinet it will fly national satellites for public and defense use on Nuri at least once a year from 2027 to 2032, including four defense electro-optical satellites on the rocket’s 11th flight in 2031, which would be the first launch of South Korean military satellites on a South Korean rocket. The 12th flight, in 2032, is to carry the Arirang-8 radar satellite with three companion satellites.
Obstacles remain. Nuri is expendable, and its cost per flight is high by commercial standards. The space agency is developing a reusable, methane-fueled next-generation rocket in a 2.29 trillion won program targeting 2032. Until launch rates rise, the country’s most sensitive satellites are likely to keep flying on foreign rockets.
The World Is Moving the Same Way
The global space economy was estimated at between $626 billion and $686 billion in 2025, depending on the firm doing the counting. Research firm Novaspace put it at $626.4 billion and expects it to pass $1 trillion by 2034. The commercial satellite industry alone recorded $303 billion in revenue, according to the Satellite Industry Association.
Novaspace assessed that the driver of government space spending, $138 billion in 2025, has shifted from science toward defense and sovereignty. The United States is folding satellites directly into weapons systems through the Golden Dome missile defense program and Starshield, the military counterpart of Starlink. China’s state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China ranked seventh on the Defense News list, a measure of how Beijing builds space and defense as a single industry.
At the center of South Korea’s version stands Hanwha, a group whose position is unusual even by global standards. The same group that integrates the country’s national rocket and builds its best-selling howitzer also owns Hanwha Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, where it is pursuing work on U.S. Navy vessels.
