Ministry of National Defense Republic of Korea

Korea and the U.S. handle the crisis of space wreckage together

On September 2, the Ministry of National Defense signed an MOU for Space Situational Awareness (SSA) service and information sharing with the U.S. Department of Defense.

Policy planning officer of MND, Major General Jang Kyeong-seok, and the U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for space policy, Douglas Loverro, made an agreement regarding cooperation for a real SSA at the Korea-U.S. defense and airspace cooperation meeting held in Washington.

The concept of SSA is to deal with the risks of collision of various objects such as satellites that orbit the earth and other space wreckage by tracking their position with space watch systems such as optical and radar systems installed on the ground and in space. Its importance is emphasized more and more as the space environment is getting congested due to serious competition between nations.

According to this MOU, the Korean Air Force and U.S. strategic command will be entrusted with missions from each defense minister and share information about launching of satellites, repair of malfunctions, collision avoidance, approach evaluation, support for deviating from orbit, re-entry and termination to cooperate and address situations as needed.

Moreover, we can gain a variety of information and services related to space objects from the U.S. strategic command whenever we need and it is expected to instill a higher level of safety when launching a satellite and operating it as well as to greatly expand space observing capability.

Policy planning officer Jang said, “This agreement will serve as a reference not only for both defense ministers to actively participate in international society making an effort to use space peacefully but also for the level of both armies' cooperation in the space field to upgrade one more step so that they maintain a tight their alliance.”

The Korean Army, in the meantime, has set “development of space observing capability” as a top defense priority project to deal with security threats caused by various space risks over the Korean Peninsula, and now is pushing ahead with force integration of the space observing system.

By Chul-Hwan, Kim < droid001@dema.mil.kr >

<Copyright ⓒ The Korea Defense Daily, All rights reserved>