Hanwha Systems joins Korea's national space debris tracking system

Hanwha Systems said Friday it has signed a contract with the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) to join, as the private-sector developer, a national system for tracking and predicting collisions among objects in orbit.

The deal, signed Sept. 9, makes Hanwha Systems a system developer for the Korean Space Situational Awareness system (K-SSA) — a project under the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA), the country's space agency. Space situational awareness refers to observing and analyzing the position and orbit of objects in space to detect and forecast risks such as collisions or objects falling back to Earth.

The company said the number of satellites in low Earth orbit has grown sharply in recent years, raising the risk of collisions between spacecraft and both artificial and natural objects in orbit — from defunct satellites to debris and meteoroids — and adding urgency to efforts to protect national space assets.

Under the project, KASI will serve as the lead research institute, setting the mission, operating concept and system requirements for the K-SSA system and overseeing technical integration across the program. Hanwha Systems will build a space-based surveillance satellite and a ground-based data system, and handle integration and testing between the two.

The surveillance satellite, a small spacecraft to operate in low Earth orbit at an altitude of about 480 kilometers, will carry an optical camera to detect and track objects in real time, collecting the observational data needed to assess collision and reentry risks.

The ground system will use artificial intelligence to analyze that data alongside information from other observation sources, predicting the trajectories and collision risks of objects in orbit and sharing that information to support rapid decision-making.

"The space industry's scope is rapidly expanding beyond developing and operating satellites to include the safe use and management of space itself," said Song Sung-chan, head of Hanwha Systems' space business division.

He said the project would help the company build core technology in space situational awareness and space domain awareness — a related concept covering not just the movement of objects in orbit but the intent and impact of activities and threats in space — while strengthening Korea's independent space security capabilities.

Hanwha Systems also signed a contract last month with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute to develop a deployment mechanism for a rover to be carried aboard a Korean lunar lander, marking its entry into the space exploration sector.

The company said it plans to apply technology from that project to its own space AI data solutions and a low-Earth-orbit satellite communications system, K-LEO.

This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.