A high-level meeting was held for the first time since the launch of the Trump administration to explore cooperation between South Korea and the United States in the field of space.
The Korea Aerospace Administration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that they held the "4th Korea-U.S. Civil Space Dialogue" on the 14th (local time) in Washington, D.C. This dialogue is the first high-level official bilateral space dialogue hosted by the United States since the inauguration of the Trump administration.
In South Korea, John Lee, head of the Korea Aerospace Administration's Space Mission Division, and Han Min-young, director of Climate, Environment, and Scientific Diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, served as co-lead representatives, while in the United States, Rahima Kandahari, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Science, Technology, and Space, and Karen Feldstein, director of international cooperation at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), served as lead representatives.
The two countries discussed expanding South Korea's participation in the Artemis program and cooperation on the L4 mission at Lagrange Point. Additionally, South Korea agreed to increase its support for missions such as NASA's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) SWFO-L1 (space weather mission).
NASA's IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) has the primary mission objective of studying the boundary of the heliosphere to understand the interaction between solar wind and interstellar medium. NOAA's SWFO-L1 aims to enhance space weather prediction capabilities by monitoring solar wind and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in real-time.
The enhancement of interoperability between South Korea's Korean Positioning System (KPS) under development and the U.S. GPS system was also discussed. The participation of South Korea in the Landsat 2030 international partnership being promoted by the United States and mechanisms for satellite information sharing between the two countries were also discussed. The next meeting will be held in South Korea in 2027.
John Lee, head of the Korea Aerospace Administration, noted that "with the establishment of the Korea Aerospace Administration, cooperation between South Korea and the United States in space is becoming more focused on space science and exploration" and added, "I hope that in the future, our cooperation will expand into various fields such as technology, industry, security, and policy."