[Yang Nak-gyu's Defense Club] Military Communication Satellite to Launch for the First Time Next Month

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu Reporter] The military's first dedicated military communication satellite will be launched next month in the United States through the private space exploration company SpaceX. Once the military communication satellite, scheduled to be delivered to our military as early as the end of next month, is activated, it will be possible to conduct independent operations without using the US military's military satellite frequencies in emergencies, accelerating the process of transferring wartime operational control.

According to foreign media such as Spaceflight Now, an aerospace media outlet, and Tesla Rati, which reports on SpaceX, on the 11th (local time), SpaceX plans to launch the military communication satellite 'ANASIS 2' for our military from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, in the second week of July.

ANASIS 2 was manufactured on Airbus's communication satellite platform 'Eurostar E3000' and is equipped with the ANASIS-II communication satellite system developed by the Agency for Defense Development (ADD). The satellite was moved to Kennedy Space Center on the 8th. ANASIS 2 is expected to reach geostationary orbit at approximately 35,400 km above the equator using its own propulsion system.

The military developed the communication satellite to improve the efficiency of military-dedicated communications. Until now, our military has used the Mugunghwa 5 satellite jointly with civilian companies. However, in June 2013, the solar panels of Mugunghwa 5 malfunctioned, reducing power production to 50%.

As an alternative, in September 2014, the military signed a contract to introduce 40 F-35A aircraft from Lockheed Martin for 7.4 trillion won, and as part of an offset trade, agreed to receive one communication satellite from Lockheed Martin. Offset trade is an international practice in arms transactions where the selling country provides counter-benefits such as technology transfer or parts orders to the purchasing country.

The ANASIS-II system installed on this communication satellite processes information more than three times faster than the previous ANASIS. The communication information exchanged is encrypted and changes frequencies more than 5,000 times per second, making it secure against eavesdropping and signal jamming. It can transmit voice, text, and video information within a radius of 6,000 km.

Some have raised concerns about the transparency of the costs related to this communication satellite. Lockheed Martin unilaterally halted the project in 2015, citing that the launch costs exceeded the initially agreed budget and requested the Korean government to share the excess costs. However, despite the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) suffering losses amounting to hundreds of millions of won due to delays in securing the communication satellite, it decided to resume the military communication satellite project without holding Lockheed Martin accountable. There are also suspicions that although it was agreed to recover any price reductions in the F-35A airframe cost from Lockheed Martin, the contract was renegotiated at a fixed price, effectively supporting Lockheed Martin with the satellite launch costs.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.