Bae Kyung-hoon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science and ICT, said, "As the era of space launches led by system integrators has opened, we will provide full support across all areas of space policy, industry, security, and diplomacy, and steadfastly back Korea's leap to become a top five space power."
On Dec. 3 at 2 p.m., Deputy Prime Minister Bae visited Hanwha Aerospace's Daejeon research and development (R&D) campus to review defense AI and space research and development achievements and held an on-site roundtable with key researchers.
The visit was arranged to review the defense and space research and development achievements that Hanwha Aerospace is prioritizing—such as the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the 21st to strengthen defense industry cooperation, and the successful fourth launch of the Nuri rocket on the 27th of the same month—and to discuss ways to expand public-private cooperation.
Deputy Prime Minister Bae personally toured research and development exhibits by Hanwha Aerospace and Hanwha Systems and was briefed on major development results, including the ARION-SMET multipurpose unmanned vehicle, the AI-based L-PGW (loitering precision guided weapon), the Nuri launch vehicle, and the small synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite.
At the subsequent roundtable, participants shared Hanwha's independent AI action plan and held broad discussions centered on policy proposals, including introducing cloud infrastructure to advance defense AI and revitalizing a privately led satellite imagery data service business.
Bae then visited the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) to inspect the Satellite Assembly, Integration and Test Center and the Satellite Control Center. He also personally encouraged the researchers who contributed to the success of the fourth Nuri launch and presented commendations for contributions to the promotion of science and technology.
In particular, at the KARI roundtable, participants held in-depth discussions on follow-up tasks and development plans to continuously utilize Nuri, Korea's only space transportation vehicle, and reached a consensus on the need to establish a stable launch system through public-private cooperation.
Bae added that day, "The government will accelerate AI-based research innovation by developing independent artificial intelligence (AI) models and build an environment where corporations can conduct research more efficiently."