S. Korea seeks to expand use of Chollian satellite

South Korea seeks to expand the use of its first geostationary communication and weather satellite so it can provide detailed information on environmental conditions throughout Northeast Asia, the government said Sunday. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said it will push to set up greater international tie-ups with overseas satellite operating organizations and take part in Geostationary Ocean Color Imager Principal Investigator Workshops that can help increase cooperative arrangements for using the Chollian satellite in the future. In addition, the ministry, which leads the country's space science development efforts, said it will propose at a meeting of state policymakers scheduled for Monday that measures be taken to create a stable distribution service of images taken by the Chollian or the Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS). It also said data processing and storage capacity need to be increased to make better use of information gathered by the COMS, and that operators such as state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute, the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute and the Korea Meteorological Administration should be tasked with strengthening observations. Areas that need closer attention include maritime environmental observation around the Korean Peninsula, better predictions on the course of typhoons heading toward the country and checking large cloud systems. Other uses for the satellite include checking seawater temperatures and keeping tabs on emergency developments in the region. The 2,460-kilogram satellite, launched in June 2010, is in stable orbit 36,000 kilometers from Earth. It cost Seoul 354.9 billion won (US$328.7 million) and took eight years to build. South Korea became the 10th country in the world to succeed in developing its own communications satellite and the seventh to have an independent weather satellite. The Chollian, meanwhile, is expected to remain in orbit for seven more years and provide controllers on earth with real-time weather and oceanographic data.