A TEN-member Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) team is undergoing advanced technical training in the Republic of Korea from August to October 2026 as part of PhilSA’s SIKLAB: Building Industrial Space Launch Systems Project, conducted in partnership with South Korean space mobility provider Perigee Aerospace, Inc.
Building on the first phase of training in 2025 and a collaboration agreement established in 2022, the PhilSA engineering team is gaining practical experience across the full operational cycle of liquid-fueled rockets using Perigee’s Blue Whale 0.1 (BW0.1) platform. The hands-on curriculum covers complete rocket assembly, systems integration—specifically on pressure regulation bays and propulsion infrastructure—testing, flight operations, and launch control procedures.
Following the training program in South Korea, the liquid-fueled sounding rocket assembled by the team will be shipped back to the Philippines for final preparations. The mission is scheduled for a test launch in 2027 in Lal-lo, Cagayan. To support the launch—which was highlighted by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
during his fifth State of the Nation Address—PhilSA is coordinating with the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA) and local government units to construct launch pad infrastructure, establish safety protocols, and draft maritime and aerial exclusion zones.
The 2027 flight test will deploy the BW0.1 platform—a 3.2-meter sounding rocket—to an altitude of at least five kilometers. It will carry a 2-kilogram locally built payload designed to measure, record, and map ground-based radio signals such as 4G LTE emissions, helping identify telecommunications dead zones across remote areas.
Beyond a single test flight, the SIKLAB project aims to establish sovereign space launch capabilities, cultivate local aerospace talent, and lay the technical, safety, and regulatory foundations for future commercial spaceports in the Philippines.
PhilSA Acting Director General Gay Jane P. Perez emphasized that progressively building domestic launch capabilities will allow greater independence in deploying satellites to support national security, environmental monitoring, and telecommunications
