• Journal of Satellite, Information and Communications
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.150-158
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• 2013

In Korea, the official monitoring of the atmospheric re-entry of satellites or space debris was initiated by the first operation of a re-entry situation analysis team for the 'Cosmos 1402' of the Soviet Union, which main body re-entered on January 23, 1983 and radio active core re-entered on February 7, 1983. After this incident, a task force team consisting Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI), Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) and other related institutes operated a situation monitoring group under the supervision of the Ministry of Science and technology (MOST) for the controlled re-entry of the Russian 'Mir' space station in 2001. The re-entry of the upper atmospheric weather satellite 'UARS' of United States had been monitored and analyzed by KASI on September 24, 2011. As the re-entry of the space object has been frequently occurred, the government officials and the experts from MEST (Ministry of Education, Science and Technology), KASI, KARI had an urgent official meeting to establish a satellite re-entry monitoring room in KASI and to give an operational authority to KASI in September 14, 2011. Under this decision, the satellite re-entry monitoring room in KASI has successfully executed the monitoring, data analyzing, official reporting, media contacting, and public announcing for the German satellite 'Roentgen' in October 2011, Russian space explorer 'Phobos-Grunt' in January 2012, Russian satellite 'Cosmos 1484' in January 2013, and European geodetic satellite 'GOCE' in November 2013 with the support from the Korean Air Force and KARI.