A dish antenna at KT Sat's Yongin Satellite Control Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, is demonstrated adjusting its azimuth angle on Tuesday. [KT]
A dish antenna at KT Sat's Yongin Satellite Control Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, is demonstrated adjusting its azimuth angle on Tuesday. [KT]

At around 11 a.m. Tuesday, in the outdoor area of KT Sat's Yongin Satellite Control Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, a massive 4.6-meter dish antenna slowly pivoted from east to west. The movement measured only a few meters on the ground, but in space it translated to a shift of thousands of kilometers. Moments later, the antenna began picking up a carrier signal from the K8 satellite orbiting in space.

The scene unfolded as a live demonstration of how geostationary satellites roughly 36,000 kilometers from Earth are monitored and controlled. The Yongin Satellite Control Center serves as the command hub for KT Sat's entire satellite operations.

Lee Hoon-cheol, head of KT Sat's Satellite Control Division, explains the history of satellite control at the exhibition hall inside KT Sat's Yongin Satellite Control Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, on Tuesday. [KT]
Lee Hoon-cheol, head of KT Sat's Satellite Control Division, explains the history of satellite control at the exhibition hall inside KT Sat's Yongin Satellite Control Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, on Tuesday. [KT]

KT Sat's Yongin Satellite Control Center is the birthplace of South Korea's geostationary orbit (GEO) satellite control. KT Sat operates five dish antennas for satellite control, each paired one-to-one with a Mugunghwa satellite — K5, K6, K7, K5A and K6A — to monitor satellite status and exchange control commands.

Since opening in November 1994, the center has operated 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, for 32 years without a single interruption. To ensure that record, KT Sat has built a redundant control architecture with a primary control station in Yongin and a backup station in Daejeon.

A geostationary satellite orbits Earth at the same speed as the planet's rotation, making it appear stationary when viewed from the ground. In reality, it travels at roughly 3.075 kilometers per second at an altitude of about 36,000 kilometers, enduring solar wind all the while.

To keep satellites in their proper orbits, the Yongin center carries out routine orbital maneuvers, real-time collection and analysis of data and anomaly signals, and rapid response whenever irregularities are detected.

"The large dish antenna is the core infrastructure of satellite control — the physical link that connects Earth and space through actual satellite signals," said Kim Gyu-pil, deputy manager of KT Sat's satellite technology team.

Kim Ki-young, head of KT Sat's satellite consulting team, added that the center handles all related operations, including satellite body management and the infrastructure needed to run it.

As AI advances and a hyper-connected era approaches, satellite networks are expected to play an increasingly important role in global communications.

To that end, KT Sat is extending its reach beyond multi-orbit operations spanning GEO and low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites all the way to 6G non-terrestrial network (NTN) connectivity.

The company plans to organically integrate satellite networks with terrestrial mobile networks and use AI to automate and add intelligence to its existing satellite control capabilities — a necessity as LEO constellations require far more simultaneous control operations than past systems.

Specifically, KT Sat plans to expand automation across three areas: a large-scale automated operations system capable of managing thousands of LEO satellites simultaneously, anomaly detection, and collision avoidance.

Alongside this, KT Sat is actively pursuing the reuse of satellites that have reached the end of their designed service lives, drawing on its accumulated control expertise. The redeployment of Mugunghwa Satellite 6 (K6) is the prime example. Launched in 2010, K6 had been slated for decommissioning after completing its 15-year design life, but control technology gave it a second purpose.

KT Sat migrated K6's existing customer services to the new K6A satellite, then rotated K6 — originally designed to face the Northern Hemisphere — 180 degrees on its Earth-pointing axis. The satellite was subsequently repositioned in an orbit suited to Oceania and put to work providing communications services across the Southern Hemisphere.

"The Yongin center, which has had its eyes fixed on space for 32 years, holds a vast accumulation of space data and real operational experience," said Choi Sung-ho, chief technology officer at KT Sat. "We will apply that control expertise to future satellite technologies including LEO and 6G NTN, and show the world the competitiveness of Korean satellites."


ko@heraldcorp.com