On April 20, the office of People Power Party Rep. Yoo Yong-won hosted a policy forum at the National Assembly Members' Office Building in Yeouido, Seoul titled From Commercial Space Law to a Security Space Era: Building the Foundation for a Defense Space Act. Yoo's office pressed lawmakers for the swift passage of the Defense Space Act.
Speakers at the forum covered models of justified self-defense and response applicable to space threats, legal liability and the state's role when satellites or other space assets are attacked, and legislative directions for creating civil-military integrated space infrastructure.
Documents provided to Yoo’s office by the Defense Ministry indicate North Korea conducted repeated radio-frequency attacks against South Korean satellites from the early 2010s through mid-2024. Authorities say those incidents appeared intended to disrupt the missions of South Korea’s synthetic-aperture radar (SAR), electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) reconnaissance satellites and communications satellites.
Kim Kwon-il, a research fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute, said outer space has become a domain for electronic and information warfare. He warned that existing legal frameworks are insufficient and urged lawmakers to establish systematic standards to protect space assets.
Jeong Young-jin, a professor at Korea National Defense University, said the international focus on space is now about safety and sustainability. He called for national-level governance to collect and analyze asset-specific operational data to better prepare for space threats.
Jung Heon-ju, a professor at Yonsei University, urged lawmakers to define space infrastructure and civil-military integrated space infrastructure in law and to codify the state's roles and responsibilities for building them. He added that establishing a public-private-military integrated space infrastructure is essential, not optional.
