The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) announced, on March 8, 2011, that images acquired by the Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite 1 (COMS-1), which had been launched on June 26, would be made available to the public from April 1. COMS-1 obtained meteorological and ocean images after reaching its operational orbit and recently completed the in-orbit test. It is reported that the COMS-1 images will be provided every 15 min, which enables organizations involved in meteorological and related fields to monitor clearly the meteorological phenomena such as yellow sand, concentrated downpour, heavy snow, and typhoon occurring around the Korean peninsula, and the reliable monitoring will help in issuing early warnings. The COMS-1 images are available at the KMA website at http://web.kma.go.kr/eng/index.jsp

In related news, on March 10, 2011, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) stated that the Russian military communication satellite, Raduga 1-7 (launched on March 27, 2004, operated at 85 degrees of east longitude), had approached within a distance of a few kilometers to COMS-1, and therefore, an emergency avoidance of COMS-1 was carried out and consequently, the distance between the two satellites became more than 10 km. It is also reported that Russia took an avoidance measure after this incident.

Yonhap News - March 8, 2011 (Korean)

Yonhap News - March 9, 2011 (Korean)

YTN News - March 10, 2011 (Korean)