- KASA, the Rural Development Administration, the Korea Forest Service, and KAI Hold Pre-Shipment Review (PSR) Meeting
The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA, Administrator Taeseog Oh), together with the Rural Development Administration (RDA, Administrator Seungdon Lee) and the Korea Forest Service (KFS, Minister Eunsik Park), announced that they held a Pre-Shipment Review (PSR) for the Compact Advanced Satellite 500-4 (CAS500-4) at the headquarters of Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) on Thursday, May 21, ahead of the satellite’s transportation to the overseas launch site.
The meeting was convened to conduct a final review of the satellite’s technical readiness and transportation safety before transitioning to the launch site shipment phase, following the completion of satellite development and various performance and environmental tests.
Representatives from the RDA and the KFS, the primary user agencies of CAS500-4, as well as KAI, the system integrator, and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), the payload developer, participated in the meeting. The participants focused on reviewing satellite development and test results, readiness for satellite imagery mission operations, transportation safety measures, launch schedule and risk management plans.
CAS500-4 is scheduled to begin transportation in June this year and is expected to be launched in July from Vandenberg Space Force Base in the United States. Once operational, the satellite will support wide-area agricultural and forest observation, including crop and forest monitoring activities for the RDA and the KFS.
Hyesun Bang, Director General for Research Policy at the RDA, stated, “We plan to enhance agricultural observation capabilities by advancing satellite-based monitoring of crops and farmland, as well as agricultural disaster risk management systems.”
Jongsu Lee, Director General for Planning and Coordination at the KFS, stated, “We expect the satellite to strengthen our capability to respond to forest disasters through rapid and accurate forest observation, while also enabling early detection of forest changes caused by the climate crisis.”
Jinhee Kim, Director General of the Satellite Division at KASA, emphasized, “CAS500-4 is expected to serve as an important foundation for expanding the utilization of satellite information in the agricultural and forestry sectors. We will continue thorough preparations until the very end to ensure a successful launch and stable mission operations.”