SEOUL (AFP) – South Korea’s first home-grown military spy satellite is ready to begin its “full-fledged” mission of monitoring the North, Seoul’s arms procurement agency said yesterday.
The satellite, launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in December last year, is part of an intensifying space race on the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang claimed it launched its own military eye in the sky a month earlier that year. Since its launch, South Korea’s reconnaisance satellite has undergone operational tests in space and this week had its “combat suitability” approved by the defense ministry.
It will now being its “full-fledged” mission, which involves capturing “images of desired areas (of the North) at their preferred times”, the Defense Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA) said in a statement.
The satellite is “equipped with the capability to precisely analyse various targets through world-class resolution”, it added.
