The Korea AeroSpace Administration will visit European space agencies and corporations, including Airbus and Thales Alenia Space, to push for expanded cooperation in satellite projects and space security.
The Korea AeroSpace Administration said on the 19th that it will attend the 2026 Korea-Europe Conference on Science and Technology (EKC 2026), to be held in Toulouse, France, from the 20th to the 21st (local time). EKC is co-hosted by The Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies (KOFST) and associations of Korean scientists and engineers in nine European countries. Toulouse, the host city, is home to Airbus headquarters and production and research facilities of Europe's aerospace industry.
On the 20th, Administrator Oh Tae-seok of the Korea AeroSpace Administration will visit Aerospace Valley, an aerospace innovation cluster, to discuss the cluster's operating model, including the cooperation structure among industry, academia, research, and government and ways to nurture startups. He will then visit Airbus D&S, a satellite manufacturer, to examine the private sector–led mass-production system for satellites.
On the same day, Oh will deliver a keynote speech at the EKC 2026 opening ceremony on the theme of "Korea's space policy direction." He will present the strategy to foster the aerospace industry recently finalized by the National Space Committee and share policy directions with European experts for Korea to leap into the top five aerospace powers.
On the 21st, he will visit the Toulouse Space Center of the National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) to tour satellite operations facilities, including an artificial intelligence (AI)-based automatic control system. At Thales Alenia Space (TAS), he will examine the next-generation digital payload integration lab and discuss potential future cooperation.
Through this visit, the Korea AeroSpace Administration plans to flesh out a development model for Korea's aerospace clusters and strengthen cooperative ties with European institutions in satellite development and operations and space security.
Administrator Oh said, "As space is not something any one nation can pioneer on its own, we will solidify mutually beneficial partnerships with major European institutions for global shared prosperity and space security."