Innospace

Innospace is a South Korean private launch vehicle company founded in 2017 and headquartered in Daejeon, developing liquid-propellant small rockets for nanosatellite and microsatellite deployment under the HANBIT family of launch vehicles — representing the vanguard of South Korea's emerging commercial launch sector alongside government programs like the KSLV-II Nuri rocket.

The company achieved a landmark milestone in March 2023 when its HANBIT-TLV (Technology Launch Vehicle) executed a successful suborbital test flight from the Alcântara Launch Center in Brazil — the first successful launch of a Korean private liquid-fuel rocket. The vehicle used a liquid oxygen / ethanol propulsion system developed entirely in-house, demonstrating core propulsion, structural, and flight control technologies in a controlled suborbital trajectory. This made Innospace the first Korean private company to successfully fly a liquid rocket to space.

Building on HANBIT-TLV experience, Innospace is developing the HANBIT-Nano vehicle targeting 50 kg to sun-synchronous orbit, and the HANBIT-Micro targeting 200+ kg to SSO for commercial small satellite operators. The company's development program has received support from Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) ecosystem of technology transfers and test facilities, while maintaining private company commercialization rights.

Innospace competes in the global small launch market alongside RocketLab, Exolaunch rideshare via SpaceX, and emerging Asian launch providers including iSpace Japan and China's Galactic Energy. The company targets commercial launch service contracts beginning in the mid-2020s.