Camera, battery, antenna among parts aboard cubesat

LG plans its own cubesat launch in 2028

Collaboration grew from startup incubator program

The Nuri rocket is transported from the assembly building at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, to the launch pad on Tuesday. [Korea Aerospace Research Institute]
The Nuri rocket is transported from the assembly building at the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, to the launch pad on Tuesday. [Korea Aerospace Research Institute]

LG Science Park, LG Group's integrated research and development hub, announced Tuesday that five components from LG affiliates will be loaded aboard a cubesat — a secondary payload satellite — prepared jointly with Unmanned Exploration Laboratory, a startup developing lunar exploration rovers. The cubesat is set to launch Wednesday aboard the fifth Nuri rocket. It marks the first time LG affiliates have undertaken a joint in-space demonstration.

If Nuri successfully reaches orbit, the cubesat will conduct sequential operational tests of each component over roughly 60 days at an altitude of 570 kilometers.

A cubesat is an ultra-compact satellite built to a standard unit of 10 by 10 by 10 centimeters, used for a range of missions including Earth observation and technology verification. The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) solicited and selected cubesats for the fifth Nuri launch from industry, research institutions and government agencies.

The five components aboard the cubesat are a camera module from LG Innotek, a battery pack from LG Energy Solution, and a power module, attitude-control actuator and satellite communications antenna from LG Electronics. The camera module will photograph the Korean Peninsula and transmit data, while the power module and attitude-control actuator will manage the satellite's power and orientation. The battery pack will supply power and collect status data. The antenna will operate continuously as the primary communications link without undergoing a separate test.

The demonstration follows a commercial off-the-shelf, or COTS, approach — adapting commercially proven components for the space environment rather than developing dedicated space-grade hardware from scratch. The method is seen as a way to accelerate the growth of the private space industry by significantly cutting development costs and timelines.

LG Science Park plans to use the demonstration to verify that each component operates normally in actual space conditions, and to apply the reliability data gathered during operation to future technology improvements and upgrades.

LG Group is also planning to launch its own cubesat in 2028, aiming to accelerate its expansion into space business opportunities. The company is currently drawing up plans to verify its independent satellite payload technology.

The collaboration originated from LG's open-innovation platform known as "Super Start." LG Science Park selected Unmanned Exploration Laboratory — South Korea's only company developing lunar exploration rovers — as a startup to nurture in 2023, and has supported it since 2024 through its second-cohort incubator program.

The push to identify space business opportunities gained momentum at the LG Technology Council. In January last year, LG convened the council — a gathering of technology executives from across its affiliates — to examine the future of the space industry and the opportunities it presents. At the meeting, LG laid out various scenarios each affiliate could pursue and discussed potential market opportunities. Particular attention was paid to collaboration models tied to Unmanned Exploration Laboratory's rover missions, which involve recording and transmitting field data during precision scientific exploration.

LG Science Park met with KASA twice last year — in June and November — to discuss cooperation in the space industry. In November last year, LG Energy Solution announced it had teamed up with US startup South8 Technologies to develop battery cells for aerospace applications, as part of an aerospace project being pursued by KULR Technology Group, a US thermal management solutions company, and NASA.

"This launch is the first step in verifying how LG's technology actually performs in the space environment," said Jeong Su-heon, chief executive of LG Science Park. "We will validate the technology we have built up on the ground and contribute to the growth of the domestic space industry ecosystem."


jeongwan@heraldcorp.com