South Korea’s drive to become a top-five space power by 2045 is no longer just about rockets and satellites. It is now a story of political maneuvering, regional parochialism, and the perennial tug-of-war between national ambition and local interests. As the shotgun presidential election draws near, the real contest is unfolding not in orbit, but in the political battlegrounds of Chungcheong and Gyeongsang, where promises of new industrial clusters and high-tech jobs are shaping the nation’s technological future.
A Tale of Two Cities: Daejeon and Sacheon
With under a month to go until voters head to the polls to choose a new president, candidates from both major parties are aggressively courting aerospace industries beyond the Seoul metropolitan area. Addressing deep-rooted regional inequality between South Korea’s capital and the rest of the nation will be one of the defining issues of the election, as the nation suffers from education disparities, housing affordability challenges, and the world’s lowest birth rates.
The city of Daejeon, the scientific capital of South Korea and home to the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) and defense conglomerate Hanwha Aerospace, hopes to be a key beneficiary of the upcoming presidential election. Lee Jae-myung, the nominee of the liberal opposition Democratic Party (DP), recently proposed a plan to transform Daejeon into a leading AI and space hub. The synergy between AI and space is real: AI-driven satellite data analysis, autonomous spacecraft navigation, and AI-driven robotic systems for maintenance and assembly are just a few examples of how these sectors reinforce each other.
On the conservative side, former President Yoon Suk-yeol’s People Power Party (PPP) has ties its space vision to national defense. PPP presidential candidate Kim Moon-soo, widely viewed as a political successor to Yoon, will likely embrace his space plans, including the establishment of major space hubs and the integration of space technology into South Korea’s national defense strategy. Other PPP primary contenders shared similar priorities: Han Dong-hoon (who finished second to Kim in the primary process) pledged to make South Korea a global leader in aerospace technology through defense-oriented AI capabilities; Hong Joon-pyo advocated for the creation of a space operations command to establish “an overwhelming electronic warfare system” against North Korea; and Ahn Cheol-soo envisioned Sacheon as a defense and aerospace industrial complex.
Sacheon, already home to an air base, the newly established Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA), and aerospace firm Korea Aerospace Industries, was a centerpiece of Yoon’s ambitions to transform South Korea into a regional space hub and bring growth to a historically neglected area.
With both major parties now vying to channel new investment and high-tech infrastructure into their preferred regions, the tug-of-war over space industry resources is nothing new. Yoon’s promise to establish KASA in Sacheon drew criticism for separating the agency from KARI in Daejeon and for KASA’s limited capabilities to coordinate policies far away from both the nation’s political and scientific hubs. Legislative delays and debates over infrastructure have only complicated matters, with critics questioning whether the isolated location of Sacheon could attract the brightest minds and support cutting-edge research. For many, Yoon’s Sacheon choice was seen as rewarding South Gyeongsang province, a conservative stronghold, as opposed to the nation’s broader interest.
Daejeon is located between North and South Chungcheong provinces, which serve as a political bellwether. Lee’s defeat by just 0.73 percentage points – the narrowest margin in South Korean history – in the 2022 presidential election against Yoon underscores the critical impact of Chungcheong. Lee lost North Chungcheong by 5.6 points and South Chungcheong by 6.1 points; in the 2017 election, the DP’s Moon Jae-in had won both by double-digits.
Now, Lee’s campaign has doubled down on the region, starting with promises to make Daejeon’s Daedeok Research Complex a global innovation cluster for the emerging space and AI sector by restoring R&D budgets slashed under the Yoon administration. Lee has also promised to move the National Assembly and the President’s Office to Sejong city, another metropolitan area between North and South Chungcheong.
This strategy echoes a familiar pattern in Korean politics: presidential candidates leverage regional development pledges for electoral gain – from Roh Moo-hyun’s promise to move the nation’s capital to Sejong in 2002 to Kim Dae-jung’s coalition-building with Chungcheong-born politician Kim Jong-pil in 1997.
Triangulating Ambition, Navigating Division
Yet, beneath the campaign rhetoric, the reality is more complicated. Lawmakers remain deadlocked over the R&D division of KASA, with regional interests clashing over whether its core research functions should be anchored in Daejeon or Sacheon. Yoon’s March 2024 plan to create a “triangular space cluster” – designating Sacheon as headquarters with satellite clusters, Daejeon as the research and investment hub, and Goheung city of South Jeolla province as the space launch hub – was intended to foster regional balance, but has instead exposed deeper rifts.
Tensions have only intensified since the 2024 April legislative elections, as candidates doubled down on promises to deliver high-tech facilities and jobs to their own districts. Now, with the presidential election looming, the debate has reignited: recent DP proposals to move KASA’s R&D division to Daejeon threaten to split the new space administration, raising fears of major operational disruptions just as staff have begun to settle in Sacheon. In South Gyeongsang, leaders remain staunchly opposed to any move that would shift research power away from their region, underscoring how the space agency’s future has become a proxy battle for regional influence.
The risk is clear: political logrolling and regionalism threaten to undermine South Korea’s space ambitions and, more broadly, the sustainability and coherence of national strategy. Industry insiders warn that campaign trail promises could evaporate the moment that the ballots are counted, noting that many of the proposals are thin on specifics. Creating a space industrial cluster demands far more than just hefty budgets – it requires sweeping regulatory reform on land use, streamlined development processes, and the kind of meticulous, long-term planning that rarely survives past election season.
As the June 3 presidential election looms, the question is not just who will win, but whether South Korea’s leaders can bridge entrenched regional divides by articulating and rallying the country around a unifying national vision for space. The future of South Korea’s space program – and its escape from the gravitational pull of its short-term politics – will depend on the answer.