Selected for the ‘Future Space Education Center’ project in the aerospace sector
Incheon City, which leads the aviation maintenance business (MRO), will also play a leading role in the space industry.
Incheon City and Inha University were selected for the ‘Future Space Education Center’ project in the aerospace field, which was openly recruited by the Ministry of Science and ICT.
The “Future Space Education Center” trains young space experts who can solve future space problems and lead new technologies. An education center is installed at the Aerospace Industry-Academic Convergence Center located in Songdo, and it is operated together with the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Inha University. Through the selection of this open recruitment, 5 billion won in government funds will be secured for five years until 2026.
To attract this project, Incheon City has formed a total of 22 consortiums including universities, research institutes, and companies.
In the future, the education center plans to train 45 professionals a year with master's and doctoral degrees with expertise to conduct future space technology research.
In addition, it plans to develop autonomous precision celestial navigation technology required for lunar exploration through industry, academia, research and government cooperation, lunar exploration rover and electrolytic thruster to mine water resources buried on the moon, and core space technologies that can be directly used in the domestic lunar probe development project scheduled for 2030.
▲ Scenarios for resource utilization of lunar poles and Mars exploration
The Aerospace Industry-University Convergence Center is a specialized institution composed of 50 specialized research personnel to create an industry-university convergence district through aerospace convergence and composition, to foster new future industries, and to nurture R&D and aviation professionals.
The city expects that this education center will greatly contribute to the advancement and diversification of local industries linking the aviation industry and the aerospace industry as well as nurturing space experts representing Korea in the aerospace industry.
As interest in space development has recently increased around the world, experts predict that the space industry, currently worth USD 385 billion, will grow to USD 1.1 trillion by 2040.
▲ Space exploration and resource utilization process
Also in Korea, in order to foster the space industry, R&D projects worth KRW 5 trillion will be promoted nationally for the next 10 years.
Incheon is the birthplace of domestic rocket research, and research in the space field is being conducted steadily at Inha University, Incheon University, Polar Research Institute, and Korea Institute of Industrial Technology.
