After three explosions involving Hanwha, the hidden risks in the capacity expansion of the commercial aerospace industry have come to light.
On June 1st, in Daejeon, South Korea.
The explosion occurred in Building 56 of Hanwha Aerospace's Daejeon Business Site. This is a cleaning room responsible for processing equipment, tools, containers, and pipelines that have come into contact with propellants.
The accident resulted in 5 deaths and 2 injuries. Firefighters, the police, labor departments, and forensic institutions subsequently entered the scene for investigation.
One day later, South Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration established an accident response task force (TF).
On June 4th, Hanwha disclosed that all domestic business sites would be temporarily shut down for two days to conduct special safety inspections and safety education.
According to the information publicly disclosed by Hanwha, the company has set June 6th as the estimated date for resuming production, but the resumption will only cover some urgent orders.
As of now, there has been no official announcement of a full resumption of production covering all production lines and all business sites in the publicly available information.
For a company that undertakes a large number of military orders, production suspension and resumption are never just internal affairs of the factory. It not only affects the delivery schedule but also influences the outside world's judgment on the stability of the production system.
Casualties are of course the most tragic outcome. But if we look back a few years, we'll find that this is not the first time such an accident has occurred at the Daejeon Business Site.
Three buildings, three processes
On May 29th, 2018, an explosion occurred in Building 51 of the Daejeon Business Site.
Public reports show that at that time, workers were carrying out solid propellant filling operations, and the accident caused multiple casualties.
On February 14th, 2019, another explosion occurred in Building 70 of the Daejeon Business Site. The accident happened during the processes related to propellant body demolding and core removal, resulting in 3 deaths.
On June 1st, 2026, the accident occurred in the cleaning room of Building 56.
The three accidents correspond to three different processes.
Building 51 is involved in propellant filling, Building 70 in demolding and core removal, and Building 56 in equipment and pipeline cleaning.
If viewed in the context of the complete production process, they are precisely located at different positions in the solid propellant processing chain.
The business undertaken by Hanwha's Daejeon Business Site is closely related to high - energy materials. According to the company's public information, the Daejeon Business Site is involved in businesses such as high - thrust propulsion engines, propellant mixing and filling, and tactical ground - to - ground systems. The Daejeon R & D Park participates in projects related to next - generation guided weapons, ammunition systems, and South Korea's launch vehicles.
Many processes in these businesses require direct contact with propellants.
During the filling stage, propellants need to be loaded into the propellant body, with strict requirements for temperature, pressure, flow state, and curing conditions.
Demolding and core removal occur after the propellant body is formed. At this time, although the propellant has solidified, it is still a high - energy material. Operations such as tooling disassembly and core mold separation involve mechanical contact and stress release.
The cleaning process may seem to be at a later stage, but it doesn't mean there is no risk. Residues may still exist in equipment, containers, and pipelines. Actions such as disassembly, flushing, wiping, handling, and the use of solvents are often completed in the same working space.
The three accidents occurred in different buildings and at different positions, but they are all related to propellant processing. Simply put, problems have occurred in multiple links of this production chain, from filling, molding to cleaning, and the risks are not concentrated in a single process.
After 568 issues
The Daejeon Business Site has previously undergone multiple rounds of special inspections.
After the 2018 accident, South Korea's labor department conducted special supervision on the Daejeon Business Site for about 10 days.
The supervision team was composed of labor supervisors and safety and health experts. A total of 486 violations related to the Industrial Safety and Health Act were identified, of which 266 were related to process safety management.
Public information shows that these issues cover multiple aspects such as safety management systems, hazardous material data management, warning signs, education and training, and process safety management.
After the 2019 accident, South Korea's labor department carried out special supervision again. The inspection lasted about 19 days and was extended to external contracting links.
The information seen by Xingdong Wuji shows that a total of 82 violations and 208 improvement suggestions were identified, accompanied by criminal referrals, fines, and rectification orders.
A total of 568 violations or issues were involved in the two rounds of supervision.
Subsequently, judicial procedures were also carried out one after another.
According to public reports, in the case related to the 2018 accident, the then - person - in - charge of the business site was sentenced to suspended imprisonment, and Hanwha's legal entity was fined 30 million won.
In the case related to the 2019 accident, multiple responsible persons were subject to criminal penalties, and Hanwha's legal entity was fined 50 million won. The second - instance court upheld the guilty verdict of the main responsible person.
From the accident to supervision and inspection, and then to judicial handling, the Daejeon Business Site has gone through a complete rectification and accountability process.
A few years later, the third explosion occurred again.
From the public records, the issues that the regulatory authorities are concerned about cover multiple aspects such as system construction, training management, process safety, and contractor management.
However, high - risk processes have a common characteristic, that is, many risks are hidden in the specific operation sites.
Whether the equipment status meets the requirements, whether the residues are completely removed, whether the tooling is used in accordance with the specifications, and whether the production line can be stopped in time when an abnormal situation occurs. These problems often occur in the most daily production processes.
For the production of propellants and high - energy materials, safety management depends not only on the system but also on the execution of the process itself.
After the accident in Building 56, these historical records were once again in the spotlight.
The accident occurred during the peak period of production expansion and orders
When the accident occurred, Hanwha was in a stage of business expansion.
In the past few years, South Korea's military exports have continued to grow. K9 self - propelled howitzers, Chunmoo multiple rocket systems, missiles, and ammunition products have received a large number of overseas orders. Markets such as Poland, Norway, Romania, and Estonia have all become important customers of South Korean military enterprises.
Public information shows that Hanwha's backlog of orders in ground defense is about 37.2 trillion won.
In February 2026, Hanwha won a contract for the Norwegian Chunmoo multiple rocket system, with an amount of about $922 million.
In March 2025, the company announced an expansion plan of about 3.6 trillion won. Among them, 1.6 trillion won was used for overseas defense production capacity and equity investment, and 90 billion won was used for the construction of a domestic modular charge system factory and R & D.
For a production system involving propellants, pyrotechnics, and power systems, production expansion is not just as simple as adding equipment and factories.
Many processes are restricted by safety distances, process qualifications, inspection processes, and verification cycles.
As the number of orders increases, the machines in the factory need to run longer, the maintenance time will be compressed, new employees need to start work as soon as possible, and the number of outsourcing teams will also increase. A production system that originally ran smoothly often becomes more strained at this time.
This change often does not appear all at once.
At first, what people may feel is just that the equipment maintenance window is compressed, the production shifts are arranged more tightly, and the frequency of dealing with various temporary situations and abnormal conditions on - site is also increasing. By the time an accident or major failure occurs, the risks have actually been hidden in the production process for a long time.
The specific cause of Hanwha's accident still needs to be investigated. But from the industrial background, it occurred during the stage of rapid growth in South Korea's military exports and continuous production expansion of enterprises.
This is also a common problem faced by the global defense industry in recent years. The growth rate of orders is often faster than the speed of production capacity construction, and the expansion cycle of high - risk processes is usually longer than that of ordinary manufacturing.
Under the pressure of production expansion, the commercial space industry also cannot avoid the same problems
In the past few years, both South Korea's defense industry and the global commercial space industry have been going through the stage of moving from technological breakthroughs to large - scale deliveries.
Rocket companies are increasing the launch frequency, satellite companies are expanding the final assembly capacity, engine companies are increasing the delivery scale, and supply chain companies are expanding their production capacity synchronously. As the industry enters the stage of mass production and continuous delivery, the risks will gradually shift from the technical end to the manufacturing end.
Judging from the locations of Hanwha's three accidents, the accidents keep occurring along the propellant processing chain.
This precisely shows that the risks in high - risk manufacturing often come from specific actions in daily production. For example, equipment maintenance, residue treatment, tooling use, abnormal response, and contractor management can all become systematic risk points.
The same is true for the commercial space industry.
Processes such as propellant processing, engine testing, pyrotechnics management, composite material curing, pipeline cleaning, and quality traceability are not usually noticeable, but they determine whether an enterprise can achieve stable deliveries.
As the production capacity expands, problems such as old processes, old experience, insufficient training, and lagging equipment transformation will be magnified.
Therefore, real production capacity construction is not just about adding factories, equipment, and personnel. More importantly, it is about transforming experience into standard processes, transforming high - risk processes into controllable processes, and transforming the links that rely on personal judgment into a stably operating system.
The real production capacity depends on the most dangerous processes
In recent years, there has been a very clear trend in the field of high - energy material production, which is to keep people farther away from dangerous materials.
In 2025, the US Department of Defense provided DPA Title III funds to Anduril for the construction of solid rocket engine production capacity.
Public information shows that the relevant investment covers key links such as high - energy material processing, pouring, curing, quality assurance, and final assembly.
The automation solutions publicly introduced by Riverbend Energetics also include automatic feeding, online weighing detection, programmable presses, and modular tooling.
The core goals of these transformations are highly consistent, which is to reduce the number of times people directly participate in dangerous operations.
For high - energy material production, automation not only means increased efficiency but also means improved risk control ability.
There is relatively limited public information in the relevant domestic fields, but in the civil explosive, high - risk chemical, and aerospace manufacturing industries, intrinsic safety, automatic control, and reducing the number of people in dangerous positions have become clear development directions.
When it comes to the production site, it actually corresponds to some very specific problems. For example, can quantitative operations be automatically completed, can key states be monitored in real - time, can process data be completely recorded, can abnormal situations automatically trigger shutdowns, and can the number of manual contacts in high - risk processes be reduced.
These problems determine whether a production line can operate stably in the long term.
For the entire aerospace and defense industry, capital investment, equipment procurement, and factory construction can be completed quickly, but process capabilities, safety systems, automation levels, and personnel training require a longer time to accumulate.
The warning from Hanwha's three accidents is that what really limits the production capacity of high - risk manufacturing are those high - risk and difficult - to - standardize key processes.
For aerospace enterprises that are expanding production, these links are more decisive for the quality of production capacity than new factories and orders.
This article is from the WeChat public account “Xingdong Wuji”, author: UniLym, published by 36Kr with authorization.