President Yoon Suk Yeol on Wednesday named an aerospace engineering professor of Seoul National University (SNU) as the inaugural chief of the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA), his office said.

Yoon Young-bin, a professor of the SNU Department of Aerospace Engineering, was tapped to take the helm of the new agency set to launch on May 27, Sung Tae-yoon, director of national policy at the presidential office, said during a press briefing.

The president also named John Lee, a retired senior executive at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as the agency’s deputy administrator, and Rho Kyung-won, a senior official at the Ministry of Science and ICT, as its deputy chief.

“(Yoon) is one of our nation’s leading researchers in the area of space propulsion systems, who has participated in and contributed to the success of the development of the Naro, the development of homegrown launch vehicles, moon exploration and other projects, while carrying out research on liquid rockets and g
as turbine engines for over 40 years,” Sung said.

Lee, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 10, previously worked at the White House budget office and NASA, while Rho was the director-general in charge during the successful 2013 launch of South Korea’s first homegrown space launch vehicle Naro, he said.

KASA’s establishment was one of Yoon’s campaign pledges. It is the first agency in South Korea to be solely dedicated to aerospace issues.

Source: Yonhap News Agency