As South Korea begins to establish a more robust space program that will include multiple defense satellites, being able to monitor and defend against threats to those assets as well as providing missile warning is important:
Republic of Korea air force Lt. Col. Kim Jae Don works on a combined joint task force air battle management plan March 10, 2015, in the Republic of Korea Air and Space Operation Center during at Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea. On Wednesday, South Korean officials asked for American assistance in expanding its space-defense program. SHAWN NICKEL/U.S. AIR FORCE
South Korea wants help from the United States as it tries to develop its nascent space-defense program, Defense Ministry officials said Wednesday.
The nation’s space plans aren’t targeting a particular country or threat, ministry officials told Stars and Stripes. However, North Korea’s continuing research on long-range ballistic missiles represents a threat that theoretically could be defeated using space-based technology.
Seoul will be “building up the foundation to carry out space warfare by creating and conducting a high-level U.S.-South Korea defense space development [tabletop exercise] regularly,” according to a recent Defense Ministry statement.
The Defense Ministry and the Pentagon will also share information on space development, a ministry spokesman said Wednesday.
South Korea established its first Space Operations Center in July, when it also announced plans to build a national space surveillance system by 2030. Last week, defense officials said the new space center successfully tracked a falling Russian satellite, with assistance from the U.S. Strategic Command.
The pact with South Korea follows similar actions taken between the U.S. and Japan to bolster cooperation earlier this year. In April, Tokyo and Washington revised 1997 bilateral defense guidelines to include a section on space, calling for the nations to “share information to address emerging threats against space systems.” [Stars & Stripes]
Despite all the talk about the non-militarization of space over the years the facts are that space is becoming increasingly militarized:
China is developing space technologies aimed at blocking U.S. military communications and destroying its ability to win conflicts, according to a report commissioned by a congressional committee.
“China’s improving space capabilities have negative-sum consequences for U.S. military security,” the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation said in the report. Its progress requires “the U.S. to prepare to confront an adversary possessing space and counter-space technologies.”
The report, released Monday in Washington, comes as Congress debates President Barack Obama’s request for a Defense Department budget increase of 7.7 percent to $534.3 billion and ways to align defense strategy and spending. The top U.S. intelligence official and the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command both warned last week that China’s space program threatens U.S. military communications.
The program is part of President Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” strategy of strengthening national power and reshaping the Asia-Pacific political environment into one in which its interests are given greater attention.
“China’s goal is to become a space power on par with the United States and to foster a space industry that is the equal of those in the United States, Europe, and Russia,” according to the report, which was prepared for the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Chinese military analysts consider that space-based information will become a deciding factor in future wars, that space will be a dominant battlefield, and that in order to achieve victory on Earth, one must first seize the initiative in space, the institute said.
“This will require China to achieve space supremacy, defined as the ability to freely use space and to deny the use of space to adversaries,” according to the report, titled “China Dream, Space Dream: China’s Progress in Space Technologies and Implications for the United States.”
The assessment that space is the dominant battlefield has led the People’s Liberation Army to conclude that war in space is inevitable, the institute said in the report led by Kevin Pollpeter, deputy director of the Study of Innovation and Technology in China at the IGCC. [Bloomberg]
So how will China take out US space-based communications? Well the 2007 Chinese satellite shoot down is an indication of what they can do. The debris left in orbit after such a conflict would have the potential of making low Earth orbit likely unusable for quite some time.
It has been a rough week for commercial space companies:
MOJAVE, Calif. — A winged spaceship designed to take tourists on excursions beyond Earth’s atmosphere exploded during a test flight Friday over the Mojave Desert, killing a pilot in the second fiery setback for commercial space travel in less than a week.
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo blew apart after being released from a carrier aircraft at high altitude, according to Ken Brown, a photographer who witnessed the explosion.
One pilot was found dead inside the spacecraft, which fell from the sky about 120 miles north of downtown Los Angeles. Another pilot parachuted out and was flown by helicopter to a hospital, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood. Their names were not released.
The crash area is in the desert north of Mojave Air and Space Port, where the test flight originated. (Associated Press)
You can read more at the link, but this will probably set back commercial space tourism by at least a decade. As we have seen in the development of any space program it is hard to do with many failures. It will be interesting to see if Virgin Galactic can keep getting investment money to support their company after this.
