South Korea will export images taken by its indigenous low-orbit observation satellites to the Philippines and India, gaining recognition for its highly reliable satellite technology, the government said on Tuesday.

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT, Satrec Initiative Imaging Service (SIIS), an agency handling the sale of national satellite images, signed a contract with the Philippines’ and India’s government bodies to export multi-purpose satellite images to respective countries.

Under the deal worth 100 million Philippine peso ($1.9 million) with the Philippines, SIIS will provide satellite images of the Southeast Asian country taken by Korea Multipurpose Satelilite-3 (Kompsat-3), also known as Arirang-3, and Kompsat-5, for one year. The deal comes after the Philippines imported satellite image reception antennas and a reception processing system from Korea in 2015 - devices that will allow the Southeast Asian country to directly receive images from the satellite. It is the first time for Korea to ink an export deal involving direct reception from Kompsat-3 and Kompsat-5.

Under a separate $4 million deal with India, images of the country taken by Kompsat-3 and Kompsat-3A will be provided for a period of two years. The satellite images will be received by Korea Aerospace Research Institute before they are sent to India.

An unnamed official from the science ministry said the latest deals with not only the Philippines but also a major space power India acknowledges Korea’s excellent satellite technology.

Both Kompsat-3 and 3A are loaded with an optical camera and were each launched in May 2012, and March 2015. Kompsat-5, which is equipped with a synthetic-aperture radar, was launched in August, 2013.

By Won Ho-sup and Lee Eun-joo

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