South Korea officials made the announcement on Wednesday, September 5, 2007. San won out over Yi So-yeon, a twenty-nine year-old doctoral student in bio systems engineering. Both candidates beat over 36,000 applicants for the prestigious space position. She will continue to train as the backup astronaut in case San is unable, for some reason, to carry out the mission.

Ko San (biography) will join Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko on a trip to the space station aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft. During his seven-to-eight-day-long visit to the ISS, San will perform eighteen experiments (such as the effects of micro-gravity on living organisms and the human body) that have been developed by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) based on suggestions from government agencies and university departments.

KARI is the aeronautics and space agency for South Korea. Its headquarters is located in Daejeon, specifically within the area called Daedeok Science Town, a technically developed section of the city containing research institutions.

South Korea has nearly finished building its own space center (Korea Space Center) in southern Goheung County, south of Seoul and in South Jeolla Province, on the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. The facility is reported to have cost about U.S.$265 million over a seven-year period.

The country’s first launch with its own rocket (Korea Space Launch Vehicle I [KSLV-I]) is expected in 2008. The first stage of the rocket is based on the Russian Angara launch vehicle and the second stage was manufactured by a South Korean company. It will lift a small satellite for the purpose of general scientific research and atmospheric surveys.

With such space projects being developed, South Korea hopes to become a major player in space exploration.


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