SEOUL– South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) has installed a new branch dedicated to developing the country’s space security capabilities, its officials said Monday.
The launch of the Military Space Branch on Saturday came as South Korea has been striving to craft space operation concepts and strategies based on inter-service cooperation amid an intensifying rivalry among major space powers in the emerging security domain.
“Space powers, including the United States, China, Russia and Japan, have been expanding budgets substantially to get the upper hand in the space domain and making all-out efforts to develop related technologies,” the JCS said in a press release.
The JCS also stressed that a country’s ability to use space is “directly linked” to its overall national capabilities.
The military has recently been stepping up efforts to devise inter-service space operations to enhance efficiency after all armed services had separately worked on their own concepts.
The country’s space development efforts gained traction after Seoul and Washington agreed to lift “missile guideline” restrictions in May. The guideline had barred Seoul from developing or possessing ballistic missiles with a maximum range greater than 800 kilometers.
Source: Yonhap News Agency