Cosmo Bee

◇ [Startup Story] Dongha Park, CEO of Cosmo Bee

Interview with Dongha Park, CEO of Cosmo Bee / Photo by reporter Changhyun Kim, chmt@

 

“Cosmo Bee is a company developing technology that enables free movement in space. It is an essential technology for developing new businesses in space, including on-orbit servicing (OOS). If the time comes when humanity lives on Mars, I would like to operate a business delivering logistics from Earth to Mars.”

 

Dongha Park, CEO of Cosmo Bee, recently made these remarks in an interview with Unicorn Factory, MoneyToday’s startup media platform. The company’s vision and aspirations are also reflected in its name, which means “the honeybee of space.”

 

Founded in 2023, space startup Cosmo Bee became the first company in Korea to successfully develop a Hall thruster, or electric thruster, for ultra-small satellites. It is a propulsion system that controls a satellite’s movements, including maintaining and adjusting its orbit.

 

A rocket can burn fuel to lift a satellite from Earth into orbit. Afterward, however, for the satellite to move to another orbit or head toward the Moon or other planets in space, where there is no oxygen, a separate propulsion technology suited to the space environment is required. This is where a Hall thruster becomes essential.

 

Unlike conventional chemical-fuel engines, a Hall thruster ionizes gaseous fuel and accelerates it using an electric field to generate movement. Thanks to its high thrust, it has been adopted for low Earth orbit satellite constellations and is the most widely used type of electric thruster.

 

A Hall thruster allows a satellite to carry less fuel, making it possible to build the satellite smaller and lighter. SpaceX, which operates Starlink satellites, also uses Hall thrusters, but its thrusters are specialized for medium and large satellites.

 

Describing the company’s technology, Park said, “This is one of the technologies Korea must secure to establish business models in the space industry during the New Space era.”

 

◇ Hall Thrusters: A Core Space Technology Essential to National Security

Interview with Dongha Park, CEO of Cosmo Bee / Photo by reporter Changhyun Kim, chmt@

 

Park enjoyed playing StarCraft from middle school and grew up watching the film Interstellar, naturally developing a dream of space from an early age. His vision for space became clearer while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Korea University. While working as a research assistant at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Park saw the Danuri spacecraft and became fascinated by technology that enables rapid movement in space. He later entered Professor Wonho Choe’s Electric Propulsion Laboratory in KAIST’s Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering to pursue a master’s degree. It was the only laboratory in Korea developing this technology.

 

Park explained the background behind founding the company: “While attending graduate school, I became convinced that technologies for moving through space would become more important than simply transporting satellites into space using rockets. Electric-thruster technology is needed for on-orbit servicing and, ultimately, space exploration. I believed that developing and commercializing this technology could also make a significant contribution to the development of Korea’s space industry.”

 

Cosmo Bee’s Hall thruster is receiving increased attention as privately led satellite services begin to take off in Korea. Hall thrusters are particularly essential for low Earth orbit satellite constellations. Low Earth orbit refers to altitudes between 160 and 2,000 kilometers above the ground. To improve the accuracy of observations, dozens of satellites are often placed in a single orbit. Park said, “For multiple satellites to maintain their spacing within the same orbit, they must use an appropriate amount of fuel while keeping their speeds constant. That is why Hall thrusters are needed—to use fuel efficiently and minimize the amount carried aboard the satellite.”

 

Furthermore, as space emerges as an area of national security amid escalating geopolitical crises around the world, including the recent outbreak of war between the United States and Iran, demand for low Earth orbit communications and reconnaissance satellite constellations for security purposes is higher than ever. “Hall thrusters will be essential in the defense and national-security sectors and can ultimately be developed into an export product,” Park said.

 

◇ From Satellite Mobility to Future Mars Logistics: The Path Opened by Hall Thrusters

Cosmo Bee’s technology is already producing tangible results. A Cosmo Bee Hall thruster was installed aboard the K-HERO CubeSat, which was launched on the fourth flight of Nuri, Korea’s domestically developed launch vehicle, in November 2025. A hollow cathode module—one of the core components required to operate Cosmo Bee’s Hall thruster—is scheduled to fly aboard Nuri’s fifth launch in August 2026. Through its participation in major government-led projects, Cosmo Bee is conducting proof-of-concept (PoC) testing across its broader Hall-thruster system and rapidly building space heritage. Most Hall thrusters currently used on Korean satellites are sourced from overseas.

 

Cosmo Bee aims to build flight heritage step by step and pave the way for domestic production. “We will continue demonstrating our technology and building flight heritage through the fifth and sixth launches of Nuri,” Park said. “Ultimately, we want to achieve successful commercialization and contribute to greater technological self-reliance across Korea’s space industry.”  The company’s ultimate destination is Mars. “In the medium to long term, once humanity begins living on Mars, logistics systems will be established to transport cargo from Earth to Mars,” Park said. “I hope Cosmo Bee, as a Korean company, will become one of the central pillars of that new era.”

 

 

 

Original article : ‘K-Hall Thruster’ Set to Power Satellite Mobility…Building Space Heritage and Kicking Off Commercialization