韩国航空宇宙研究院2027年预算申请增47%至1.65万亿韩元，重点投向运载火箭与月球探测

The government will raise the Korea AeroSpace Administration's budget by 47% to about 1.65 trillion won ($1.2 billion) next year, concentrating investment on launch vehicles and lunar exploration. The plan calls for building a regular launch schedule for the Nuri rocket and sending a domestically built small lunar lander to the moon in 2030, shifting the center of gravity of the country's space program from securing technology to carrying out actual space missions.
The Korea AeroSpace Administration said on the 1st that it has drawn up a 2027 government budget request of 1.6491 trillion won, up 529 billion won from 1.1201 trillion won this year. The agency's budget has risen steadily from 759.8 billion won in 2024 to 964.9 billion won in 2025 and 1.1201 trillion won in 2026.
The government has sharply increased spending on what it calls the repeatability and operational readiness of space development. South Korea secured independent launch vehicle technology through the Nuri program. But turning the rocket, which has flown four times, into a broader space industry requires steady launch demand and infrastructure to keep sending satellites into orbit. To that end, the government will push for at least one Nuri launch a year and, over the medium to long term, build a privately led system capable of two to three or more launches annually. In lunar exploration, it will broaden investment beyond orbiter-based missions to communications satellites, landers and surface mobility technology.
Lunar exploration is the area with the largest increase. Related spending will rise 180.1% to 279.4 billion won next year from 99.8 billion won this year. Rather than treating the moon solely as a target for scientific exploration, the government views it as a future space for economic activity including communications, navigation and resource use, and will build an exploration framework running from Earth-moon communications infrastructure to a small lunar lander demonstration and then an independent lunar landing.
In particular, a new 106.3 billion won program will begin to develop a small lunar lander, targeting a landing and technology demonstration in 2030. Another 13 billion won in new funding will go toward a lunar orbit communications satellite linking the lunar surface and Earth, and 5.6 billion won is allocated for scientific and technical payloads and mobility technology for the lunar surface. Funding for the existing second-phase lunar lander program will also increase to 93.7 billion won from 80.9 billion won this year.
The largest single area by budget size is space transport, which the agency has dubbed building a space highway. Spending will rise 113.8% to 562.9 billion won next year from 263.2 billion won this year. A new program to support follow-up Nuri launches will receive 75 billion won and establish a system for at least one launch a year. Over the medium to long term, the goal is to shift to a privately led commercial launch ecosystem capable of two to three or more launches annually.
Funding for the next-generation launch vehicle that will succeed Nuri will grow 2.4-fold to 291.6 billion won next year from 120.4 billion won this year. The focus is on securing first-stage reusability and heavy-lift technology to improve the price competitiveness of future launch vehicles. The program to upgrade the Korean-made launch vehicle will receive 155 billion won, and 25.3 billion won in new funding is allocated for a third-phase upgrade that will replace aging equipment at the Naro Space Center and build a large assembly facility and test buildings.
The simultaneous doubling of launch vehicle and lunar exploration budgets is seen as a strategy to link the two fields into a single space development framework. The approach is to expand the capacity to carry satellites and probes into space and, on that basis, extend activity into lunar communications, landing and exploration. More launches in particular would create more opportunities to carry private satellites as well as government ones, potentially laying the foundation for a domestic launch services market.
In the satellite field, 264.7 billion won will fund a new geostationary environment and ocean satellite program and expand investment in the Kompsat-8 multipurpose satellite, the Korean Positioning System (KPS) and low-Earth-orbit satellite communications technology.
Core technology development for a space AI data center will be launched as a new program. It centers on developing high-efficiency, high-capacity heat dissipation and power control technologies needed to operate a data center in space, and verifying them on the ground, with 2.1 billion won allocated. Spending on future aviation, including drones and advanced air mobility technology, will rise 7% to 56.8 billion won from 53.1 billion won.
The government aims ultimately to translate this investment into growth for the private aerospace industry. It will spend 184.5 billion won on building a private-sector-centered aerospace industrial ecosystem. The New Space investment fund will receive 100 billion won, unchanged from this year, while support for demonstrating the commercialization of space technology will rise to 1.5 billion won from 500 million won, and the program to build a private aerospace industrial ecosystem will rise to 1.9 billion won from 900 million won. Funding to train space technology innovation talent will more than double to 6.1 billion won from 3 billion won.
The agency says the government will not stop at developing launch and exploration technology itself but will use public investment to create early launch and exploration demand and infrastructure, then channel that into business opportunities for private companies. "The 2027 budget request places its emphasis on going beyond government-led technology development to connect that work to corporate growth and industrial competitiveness," Korea AeroSpace Administration Administrator Oh Tae-seok said. "We will do our utmost to strengthen competitiveness in space transport, space exploration, advanced satellites and future aviation, and to achieve a great leap forward for South Korea's aerospace industry."