South Korea launched the country's first center for space monitoring on Wednesday as it aims to better prepare against emergency situations in space and track the passing of enemy satellites, the Air Force said.

The space information operation center, opened at the Air Force headquarters in Gyeryong, South Chungcheong Province, located some
176 kilometers south of Seoul, will enable the military to better guard the country against accidents in space, such as the breakdown of the Russian cargo spacecraft Progress in May, the Air Force said in a press release.

It will also help the Air Force better detect and predict the passing of satellites operated by enemies and neighboring countries, and utilize the information for South Korean military operations, according to the release.

The U.S. Strategic Command in charge of space surveillance will provide information to the local monitoring center following a South Korea-U.S. agreement on space data sharing.

In September, the allies signed the memorandum of understanding on sharing "space situation awareness" to prevent accidental collisions of satellites or other orbital objects.

Under the contract, South Korea's Air Force will receive higher quality and more timely space information in exchange for information on satellite positions and radio frequencies, the Pentagon has said.

Also on Wednesday, the Air Force signed agreements with the Korea Meteorological Administration, research institutes on space and astronomy and satellite maintenance firm KT Sat to beef up space surveillance, according to the Air Force.

Under the agreements, the parties will work jointly toward stopping collisions or the approach of space objects, launching vehicles into space and putting derailed vehicles back into orbit around the earth, the Air Force noted.

"Steady monitoring of the conditions of space and satellites as well as information sharing on that has become as important as ever," the Air Force said.

"High-tech weapons used by all sectors of the military now come with global positioning systems and satellite failures could render such GPS-based weaponry useless," the Air Force highlighted. (Yonhap)