South Korea's new unmanned aerial vehicle is expected to fly at an altitude of roughly six to seven miles for the country's air force and coast guard. (Defense Acquisition Program Administration)
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — South Korea is mass-producing its own unmanned aerial vehicle, 14 years in development, to boost its reconnaissance capabilities against the North.
Production began recently for the medium-altitude UAVs, according to a news release Thursday from South Korea’s Defense Acquisition Program Administration.
The agency signed onto the $353 million project with three defense contractors — Korean Air, the country’s primary airline, and Seoul-based firms LIG Nex1 and Hanhwa Systems — in December; development began in 2008.
The UAV is expected to fly at an altitude of roughly six to seven miles for South Korea’s air force and coast guard, with the possibility of it being exported to other countries, according to the release.
South Korea is giving “top priority” to tools that can address threats from the North, according to a five-year prospectus released last month by the Ministry of National Defense. The list includes manned and unmanned reconnaissance drones that could monitor North Korean “provocations … in early stages.”
On Dec. 26, 2022, five small North Korean drones were detected crossing the South’s airspace in the first such flight in five years. The drones were not recovered, but they prompted South Korea’s military to scramble fighter jets and helicopters and suspend civilian flights.
South Korea’s military also responded with “corresponding measures” by flying drones into the North’s airspace to surveil military installations, according to a ministry statement at the time.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol condemned the South’s ability to respond to the incursion and announced the military would create the Drone Operations Command specifically tasked with drone warfare.
One month after the incident, a special investigation by the U.N. Command’s Military Armistice Commission found that both Koreas violated the 1953 armistice by their actions.
The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Jan. 19 that its military successfully tested a nuclear-capable underwater drone.
Developing a “so-called underwater nuclear weapons system” is evidence of the communist regime’s multiple violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions, the South’s military said in a statement.
