Hancom, Pioneer of the Private Satellite Era with 'Sejong-1'... "We Will Lead the New Space Era"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] "It was a glorious moment marking the first step in the domestic satellite data business. Based on the image data acquired through Sejong-1, we will create various services and lead the new space era." said Choi Myung-jin, CEO of Hancom Inspace.

Hancom's efforts to expand its aerospace business have borne fruit. Hancom's first Earth observation satellite, 'Sejong-1,' successfully settled into orbit. This is seen as setting a new milestone in the domestic private satellite data market, which had relied on foreign satellites until now.

According to Hancom on the 27th, Sejong-1 was launched at 3:35 a.m. Korean time on the 26th from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, and settled into a 500 km orbit from the ground. Communication with the ground station has also been completed.

Sejong-1 is a nano-class ultra-small low Earth orbit satellite measuring 100×200×300mm and weighing 10.8kg. It orbits the Earth 12 to 14 times a day, once every 90 minutes. After about a month of testing, it plans to secure Earth observation image data with a 5-meter resolution observation camera.

Hancom plans to prioritize service in Asia and the Middle East, regions with high demand for satellite image data, including many agricultural and conflict countries.

The successful launch of Sejong-1 is significant as it marks the opening of the private space era led by domestic ICT companies. It opens the path to securing image data independently without purchasing it from overseas. In particular, Hancom has established an opportunity to build an all-in-one service system covering image data collection, management, analysis, and sales.

Hancom's expansion into the aerospace sector is based on the judgment that the global space market is shifting to private-led initiatives, and the satellite image service and ultra-small satellite markets will also grow rapidly.

According to Allied Market Research, a U.S. market research firm, the global satellite image market is expected to grow nearly threefold from $2.6 billion (about 3.4 trillion KRW) in 2020 to $7.3 billion (about 9.4 trillion KRW) in 2030.

India's market research firm Valuates Reports also forecasts the global ultra-small satellite market to grow more than fourfold from $3.2 billion (about 4 trillion KRW) in 2020 to $14.1 billion (about 18 trillion KRW) in 2030.

Accordingly, Hancom plans to sequentially launch satellites up to the 5th starting with Sejong-1, and depending on business growth, to launch and operate more than 50 cluster satellites including observation satellites as well as communication satellites.

Additionally, once the development of the Korean Space Launch Vehicle (KSLV) currently underway is completed, Hancom plans to prepare and invest in launching the Sejong satellite series domestically.

Along with this, Hancom Group has received core technology enabling two-way communication between ground stations and low Earth orbit satellites from the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and will advance and commercialize satellite communication technology necessary for cluster satellite system operation.

CEO Choi said, "While the commercial satellite data market is already active overseas, domestic dependence on foreign satellite data was high. We expect the Korean commercial satellite data market to grow rapidly following the successful launch of Sejong-1."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.