Hanwha Aerospace is building the first commercial rocket in South Korea, The Japan Times reported on April 3.
At the same time, the space startup sets itself an ambitious goal: over the next decade, to catch up with Elon Musk’s SpaceX price.
The company is part of the Hanwha Group, a 70-year-old corporation that started as an explosives maker, moved into arms sales and is now moving into green energy, defense and aerospace. Cash from arms sales to Ukraine’s neighbors helps finance Hanwha’s efforts to expand its space business.
The Nuri rocket, developed by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute using Hanwha engines, is not intended for reuse, but the goal is to eventually halve launch prices by 2032 to match SpaceX, said Yoo Dong Wan, Sr. , In an interview. Executive Vice President of Hanwha Aerospace.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 currently costs about $67 million ($5.2 billion) per launch.
“Initially, we may be a niche player and eventually we hope to catch up with SpaceX,” Yu said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Seoul.
Hanwha Aerospace shares are up more than 30% this year, after rising 53% in 2022 when Hanwha Group merged all of its defense businesses into Hanwha Aerospace. Hanwha Group is a family conglomerate; His heir presumptive, Dong Kwang Kim, a Harvard graduate, now runs the aerospace business.
Like other competitors, Hanwha Aerospace aims to be more than just a rocket company and move into satellite operations, lunar exploration and resource extraction.
Hanwha Aerospace has bought a 9% stake in British satellite company OneWeb, a competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service. Parent company Hanwha Group is in the process of buying a 49.3% stake to become the largest shareholder in submarine maker Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering.
South Korean President Yoon Sok-yeol has set himself the goal of developing the rocket industry. Last year, Hanwha Aerospace won a tender to co-develop a next-generation commercial rocket with the government.
Hanwha, which has so far only worked on aircraft components and engines, plans to build three more Nuri missiles with government researchers. In Japan, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ H3 rocket, which recently failed to reach orbit, is targeting $50 million per launch.
Demand for Korean missiles will initially be determined by the government, but the goal is to eventually halve it, Yu said, adding that Hanwha is committed to developing the next-generation missile on its own.
“Our goal is a reusable rocket,” Yu said. “This is something we have to develop on our own,” as foreign companies “are not willing to share this technology with us,” he said.
Hanwha is one of the fastest growing aerospace and defense contractors in the world. Hanwha Systems, a subsidiary of Hanwha Aerospace, ranked third in revenue growth among the 100 companies analyzed by PwC in its 2022 Global Aerospace and Defense Report. Among Asian firms, it was No. 1.
Last year, Hanwha Aerospace posted record arms sales of 6.5 trillion won (390 billion rubles) with a record operating profit. She signed a new contract with Poland and a partnership with Romania and Egypt.
According to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, South Korea’s arms exports increased by 74% in 2022, compared with a decline of 35% in the UK, 4.4% in Spain and 15% in Israel.
“Hanwha makes a lot of money selling weapons,” said Lee Dong Hong, an analyst at Shinhan Financial Investment in Seoul. “Therefore, the company has an opportunity to invest in the aerospace industry.”
South Korea occupies a unique position in the global arms market with relatively inexpensive weapons designed to defeat the conventional Soviet-based systems used by neighboring North Korea. Hanwha K-9 guns were used to shell Yeonpyeong Island during the inter-Korean conflict in 2010.
Source: Rossa Primavera
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