[K-SCIENCE] Cheollian-2A's Communication with Grou

South Korea's geostationary Cheollian-2A weather satellite which was launched in Guiana in early December has made it safely into orbit.

Since its successful launch on December 5 from the South American country, the Cheollian-2A satellite has communicated with four overseas base stations, including the Dongara earth station in Australia.

The satellite has also succeeded in making its first communication with the Daejeon earth station of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, or KARI.

Safely settling in the stationary orbit at the altitude of 36,000 kilometers, Cheollian-2A will go through tests of its own equipment and functions from later this month.

Owing to the country's first indigenous geostationary satellite, South Korea will be able to cope with urgent natural disasters, including localized heavy rains that were not easy to forecast before.

[Choi Jae-Dong, KARI official in charge of satellite development]
"We plan to carry out video image acquisition tasks (via the satellite) over the next six months, so that our processed images can contribute to more accurate weather observation."