Seoul, Nov 28 (EFE).- The launch of South Korea’s first reconnaissance satellite has been postponed due to bad weather, as announced Tuesday by a spokesperson for the defense ministry.
The device was scheduled to be launched Thursday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Base, on the west coast of the United States.
The Defense spokesperson said Saturday has been provisionally established as the new launch date.
This satellite is the first of five that South Korea wants to send into space by the end of 2025 in order to reinforce its surveillance of neighboring North Korea, with which it is technically at war.
The Defense Development Agency, dependent on the defense ministry, has signed a contract valued at about $30 million to use commercial satellites from the company Hanhwa Systems to strengthen its communication systems of the South Korean army.
The delay also comes a week after North Korea successfully deployed its first spy satellite, the Malligyong-1, which according to Pyongyang has taken images of various United States military bases, including the White House and the Pentagon. It has not published any of the photos to date.
Experts believe that, regardless of the quality of the images captured by the North Korean satellite, the deployment is an important leap that would allow Pyongyang to detect movements of troops and assets or targets for potential preventive attacks. EFE
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