[Yang Nak-gyu's Defense Club] Surveillance and Reconnaissance Force Development Delays Continue

Used Reconnaissance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (MUAV)

[Asia Economy Yang Nak-gyu Reporter] The delay in the development of reconnaissance assets capable of real-time monitoring of North Korea's nuclear and missile activities is expected to cause setbacks in the transfer of wartime operational control. This is because South Korea and the United States have set a prerequisite that the South Korean military must possess essential surveillance and reconnaissance response capabilities for the transfer of operational control.

According to the military on the 10th, the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided in March 2002 at the Joint Chiefs Meeting to develop a Medium-Altitude Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (MUAV) for reconnaissance purposes. The MUAV is an unmanned aircraft that conducts reconnaissance of ground targets from an altitude of 10 to 12 km, with the radar onboard having a detection range of about 100 km. The MUAV was planned to be incorporated into the Air Force Reconnaissance Flight Unit. The development project, which involved an investment of 760 billion KRW, began in 2013 and was led by Korean Air and the Agency for Defense Development (ADD).

However, in 2017, delays in the introduction of the Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) system and defects in the data link caused the completion date to be postponed from the original October 2017 to December 2018, a delay of 14 months. In 2018, the development schedule was further delayed by 9 months to September 2019 due to an extension of the testing and evaluation period. Last year, a critical defect occurred in the Atmospheric Data Sensor (ADS), which calculates flight data such as altitude and speed. Consequently, the development timeline was extended again beyond the year to June of this year, but it remains uncertain whether the development will be successfully completed.

As the MUAV development is delayed, the fatigue of the High-Altitude Unmanned Aerial System (HUAS) Global Hawk, which has been in test operation since this year, is inevitably accumulating. Initially, the military planned to deploy the developed MUAV to conduct reconnaissance near the northern region of the Korean Peninsula, while the Global Hawk would monitor areas further north. However, due to the delay in MUAV development, the Global Hawk must now cover all areas of the northern region alone. If the Global Hawk were to conduct reconnaissance on 1,000 targets in the northern region alone, it would require 24 hours of flight. But if the MUAV and Global Hawk divide the area and share the mission, 10 hours would be sufficient.

The development project for the Baekdu Reconnaissance Aircraft, which can detect North Korea's nuclear tests or missile launches in advance, is also expected to be delayed. The military currently operates six Baekdu Reconnaissance Aircraft to fill the gap left by the Global Hawk, which lacks signal collection equipment. The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) completed upgrades on two of these aircraft during the '701 Project' in 2017. Starting this year, a second phase project to upgrade the remaining four Baekdu Reconnaissance Aircraft should proceed, but issues have arisen because the manufacturing methods and specifications were not standardized during the 2017 upgrade. The military plans to decide on the method for the second phase project next month, but the upgrade period is expected to be delayed from four years to eight years.