South Korea to launch own military satellite in November

This March 22, 2016, photo provided by Lockheed Martin shows the first GPS III satellite inside an anechoic test facility at Lockheed Martin's complex south of Denver. AP-Yonhap file

By Jung Da-min

South Korea will launch its first military satellite in November, as part of offset arrangements with Lockheed Martin in purchasing F-35A stealth fighter jets, a spokesman at the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said Thursday.

"Lockheed Martin is going to provide a military communications satellite to the South Korean government as an offset offering for the South's introduction of its F-35A Lightning II jets," he said.

The satellite for the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army will be launched in November from an airbase in Florida.

The military has so far shared the use of Korea's Mugunghwa-5 civilian satellite launched in 2006, under a military communication system named ANASIS that enables communication for a 6,000 kilometer radius around the Korean Peninsula.

But the ROK Army is in need of its own satellite dedicated to military purposes to better deal with the threat of North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles.

In March 2014, the ROK Air Force agreed to purchase 40 of the radar-evading strike aircraft from the U.S. aerospace and defense company for 7.4 trillion won ($6.5 billion).

The initial offset arrangement to send South Korea's first military satellite into orbit by early 2018, however, has been delayed after Lockheed Martin suspended it citing high costs.

This stirred controversy over whether the U.S. company should pay compensation for the suspension, but the DAPA spokesman did not comment on the matter when asked about it during a press briefing.

Meanwhile, two F-35A Lightning II fighters out of 10 which the Air Force will receive from Lockheed Martin this year are expected to arrive by the end of March to be deployed around April or May, according to industry sources.

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