On Friday, a SpaceX rocket launched South Korea’s first military spy satellite, escalating the peninsula’s space competition after Pyongyang launched its first military eye in the sky last week.
Seoul’s surveillance satellite was launched from the Vandenberg US Space Force Base in California at 10:19 am local time (GMT 1819 GMT) by one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets.
The rocket was inscribed with the word ‘KOREA’.
Seoul intends to launch four more spy satellites by the end of 2025 to improve its spying capacity over the North.
Seoul’s satellite, which is set to orbit between 400 and 600 kilometres (250 to 370 miles) above Earth, is capable of detecting an object as small as 30 centimetres (11.8 inches).
The defense ministry official stated, “Considering resolution and its capacity for Earth observation… our satellite technology ranks in the top five globally”.
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