While SpaceX prepares for what could become one of the largest IPOs in history, a parallel and increasingly competitive story is unfolding across Asia. A new wave of ambitious rocket startups is determined to claim a share of the rapidly expanding commercial launch market, challenging the long-standing dominance of the United States and China.

Among the most promising is Unastella, a four-year-old South Korean company that recently closed a $24 million Series B round, bringing its total funding to $44 million, according to TechCrunch.

In May 2025, Unastella successfully launched its own rocket, the Una Express-I, from South Korean soil — a significant milestone for a nation still building its commercial space capabilities. The Seoul-based startup is developing its own launch vehicles and engines, with an initial focus on small satellite launch services.

Founder and CEO Jae Park told TechCrunch that the near-term priority is proving the technology and business model through reliable orbital missions, with crewed suborbital spaceflight as a longer-term ambition.

Unastella’s approach is deliberately pragmatic. It uses a kerosene and liquid oxygen propulsion system — one of the most battle-tested combinations in rocketry, also employed by SpaceX’s Falcon vehicles. Notably, the company has replaced the traditional turbopump with an electric motor pump, a simpler and less expensive alternative already validated in flight by Rocket Lab.

While this choice reduces payload capacity due to the heavier electric system, Park views it as a strategic trade-off for speed to market.

“We’re not an R&D group trying to build the most impressive rocket. We’re a commercial launch company trying to get to market fast.”

This mindset distinguishes Unastella in an industry often seduced by cutting-edge but unproven technologies. Park emphasized that the company maintains end-to-end control over design, manufacturing, ground operations, and flight data. The Una Express-I launch served as the first comprehensive test of this vertically integrated approach.

A Founder with Deep Rocket Heritage

Park’s credentials lend substantial credibility to the venture. He has spent his career immersed in rocket engine development, including work on combustion systems for South Korea’s Nuri rocket — the country’s first indigenously developed orbital launch vehicle, built by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI). He later joined the German Aerospace Center in Berlin to contribute to European launch vehicle engines before returning to Korea and eventually founding Unastella.

The startup is not yet revenue-generating, but its investor base, led by Altos Ventures and including Korea Development Bank, Strong Ventures, and Hana Ventures, signals confidence in its disciplined execution. Institutional ties are already strengthening: Korea’s national space agency has flown components on the Una Express-I, and KARI has transferred electric motor pump technology to the company.

South Korea’s Emerging Commercial Space Ecosystem

Unastella operates within a South Korean space sector that is still young but gaining momentum. Hanwha Aerospace, the country’s largest defense conglomerate, took full control of the government-developed Nuri rocket last year after acquiring technology rights from KARI. Two other startups, Innospace and Perigee Aerospace, are also advancing their own vehicles, though none have yet achieved a commercial orbital launch.

The government is actively supporting the sector through the newly established Korea Aerospace Administration (KASA), which has committed $266 million over seven years to develop launch infrastructure. This investment reflects Seoul’s goal of reducing dependence on foreign launch providers and building sovereign capabilities in a domain increasingly viewed as critical for national security, communications, and economic competitiveness.

Asia’s Broader Push into Space

The competition extends well beyond South Korea. China currently leads the region, with multiple private companies, including Galactic Energy, LandSpace, and iSpace, having conducted multiple orbital launches. Japan’s H3 rocket, developed by JAXA and Mitsubishi, achieved its first successful launch in 2024, while startup Interstellar Technologies is developing its own small-lift vehicle. In Australia, Gilmour Space attempted its first orbital launch this year.

New Zealand-founded Rocket Lab remains the standout success story from the region — the only Asian-founded company to have built a commercially viable launch business, now listed on Nasdaq and regularly conducting missions for both commercial and government customers.

The global space launch market was valued at roughly $15 billion in 2023 and is projected to nearly triple to $41 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research. Demand for small satellite launches, in particular, is expected to surge as constellations for communications, Earth observation, and scientific research expand rapidly.

Unastella’s pragmatic, cost-conscious approach positions it to capture a meaningful share of the smallsat launch market, which is often underserved by larger vehicles optimized for heavy payloads. By controlling the full stack in-house, the company aims to reduce costs and improve responsiveness compared to competitors reliant on complex international supply chains.

However, the path ahead is far from guaranteed. Achieving consistent orbital success, securing repeat customers, and scaling production while managing capital-intensive development will test the team’s execution. Geopolitical factors, including U.S.-China tensions and export controls on dual-use technologies, could also shape the competitive landscape in unpredictable ways.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has moved to close what experts describe as a significant gap in America’s AI export control regime, issuing new guidance that could restrict Chinese companies from acquiring the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence chips through overseas subsidiaries.

The action targets a potential weakness that emerged after the Trump administration abandoned enforcement of the Biden-era AI Diffusion Rule in May 2025. Industry observers say the decision may have inadvertently allowed Chinese firms operating outside mainland China to purchase cutting-edge processors from companies such as Nvidia and AMD without the licenses typically required for exports to China.

The new guidance, released on Sunday, clarifies that advanced AI chips exported to entities headquartered in China will remain subject to U.S. licensing requirements regardless of where those entities are physically located.

The move represents the latest effort by Washington to tighten restrictions on technologies viewed as critical to the global race for artificial intelligence supremacy and national security.

At the center of the issue are Nvidia’s Blackwell and Rubin processors and AMD’s MI350X accelerators, chips considered among the most powerful AI computing products currently available. These processors are essential for training and deploying frontier AI models and have become a focal point of U.S. efforts to limit China’s access to advanced computing capabilities.

The Commerce Department’s clarification suggests concerns inside Washington that Chinese firms may have been exploiting overseas operations in countries such as Malaysia and other Southeast Asian technology hubs to continue acquiring advanced U.S. hardware.

While the government has not disclosed the scale of the activity, one industry source familiar with semiconductor supply chains estimated that hundreds of thousands of advanced chips may have been shipped during the period in question, according to Reuters.

If accurate, such volumes would represent a substantial flow of AI computing power at a time when U.S. policymakers have been attempting to constrain China’s ability to develop next-generation artificial intelligence systems.

Technology analyst and former U.S. State Department official Chris McGuire described the issue as a major vulnerability in America’s export control framework.

“This is a HUGE problem,” McGuire wrote on social media, arguing that the gap effectively allowed overseas subsidiaries of Chinese firms to purchase Nvidia Blackwell processors without obtaining export licenses.

“Chinese companies have been buying these chips, very likely at scale,” he added.

While restrictions can prohibit direct shipments into China, multinational corporations often operate extensive networks of subsidiaries, affiliates, and data center operations across multiple jurisdictions. As a result, regulators have increasingly focused not only on where advanced chips are shipped, but also on who ultimately controls and uses them.

The issue has become more pressing as Southeast Asia emerges as a critical hub for AI infrastructure investment. Countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia have attracted billions of dollars in data center spending from global technology companies seeking access to power, land, and connectivity needed for AI computing.

Those same locations have also become areas of concern for U.S. officials seeking to prevent advanced semiconductors from indirectly reaching restricted Chinese entities.

The guidance reflects a broader shift in U.S. policy from controlling physical exports to monitoring beneficial ownership and end-use access. Rather than focusing solely on geography, regulators are increasingly scrutinizing whether Chinese companies can gain effective access to advanced AI computing resources regardless of where those resources are located.

Importantly, the Commerce Department stopped short of requiring existing facilities to shut down operations or disconnect servers already equipped with advanced processors. That distinction may prove significant for cloud providers, data center operators, and infrastructure investors that have built AI computing facilities serving multinational customers.

The guidance appears aimed primarily at preventing future transactions rather than disrupting existing deployments.

The decision is likely to create new compliance challenges for semiconductor manufacturers, cloud providers, and data center operators, which may now face heightened scrutiny over customer ownership structures and cross-border corporate relationships.

For Nvidia and AMD, the clarification adds a fresh challenge to an already evolving regulatory landscape. Both companies have repeatedly found themselves caught between growing global demand for AI computing power and increasingly stringent U.S. export restrictions.

The latest action also underscores a broader reality of the U.S.-China technology rivalry: as export controls become more sophisticated, companies and governments continue searching for new pathways to access critical technologies.

Washington’s latest move exposes policymakers’ belief that controlling advanced AI capabilities requires monitoring not just where chips are shipped, but who ultimately benefits from their computing power.

The episode also raises questions about how much advanced AI hardware may already be operating within the global networks of Chinese technology firms. While the new guidance closes a potential pathway for future acquisitions, it remains unclear how much computing capacity may have already been accumulated during the period when the regulatory ambiguity existed.