[Exclusive] 'Kill Chain Eye' Reconnaissance Satellite Overseas Lease Reinitiated... Focused Surveillance on North Korea

No Surveillance Gaps with Our Military's Medium Reconnaissance Satellite
Price Negotiations Underway with Finland, France, Israel, and Others

Our military is once again pursuing a plan to lease reconnaissance satellites, which are the core of the 'Kill Chain' preemptive strike technology against North Korean nuclear weapons and missiles, from overseas. If foreign reconnaissance satellites are brought in within this year, it is expected that independent intelligence on North Korea, such as the 7th North Korean nuclear test, can be collected.

According to the government on the 12th, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) conducted preliminary research last year considering costs to lease overseas reconnaissance satellites and then entered negotiations with Israel, Germany, France, and others. However, the contract was not finalized due to difficulties in leasing conditions. A government official stated, “We are currently re-pursuing the project to sign a lease contract within this year.”

The military originally planned to launch small satellites along with medium and large satellites within this year, but as the operational deployment was delayed, it reviewed the option of leasing small satellites earlier this year and reportedly reported this to the Presidential Office.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

As part of the reconnaissance satellite project called the ‘425 Project,’ our military plans to launch an electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) satellite in November this year. The 425 Project is a program by DAPA and the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) to secure five medium-sized reconnaissance satellites, including four high-performance synthetic aperture radar (SAR) equipped satellites and one electro-optical (EO) and infrared (IR) equipped satellite, to respond to North Korean missiles.

These medium-sized reconnaissance satellites are expensive and limited to only five units, making it impossible to monitor North Korea 24 hours without gaps. The revisit time for the five reconnaissance satellites to pass over and return to the Korean Peninsula airspace is two hours. Since the high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle Global Hawk, deployed in April 2018, takes 60 seconds to capture one image, it would take more than 40 hours to capture about 2,500 images covering the entire North Korean territory.

Accordingly, the Defense Intelligence Headquarters pursued a plan last year to lease reconnaissance satellites from Israel, France, and Germany. These satellites are small synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites with a resolution of 50 cm to 1 m, capable of real-time detection of North Korean military movements around the nuclear test site and the Dongchang-ri launch site where intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are launched.

However, negotiations on price with these countries failed, and there are plans to resume negotiations this year. Recently, Finland’s reconnaissance satellite company ICEYE, which operates the world’s largest SAR satellite constellation, has joined, and our military expects to have an advantage in negotiations. A government official said, “Medium-sized reconnaissance satellites in geostationary orbit operate at an altitude of 36,000 km and one satellite can observe 34% of the Earth, but leasing foreign satellites allows focused monitoring of the North Korean region.”