Category Archives: Coalition/Allies

Coalition/Allies, Space, tech

South Korean satellite fails to orbit

YONHAP NEWS reports that South Korea’s first attempt to put its own satellite into orbit has failed.  One of the two fairings — the aerodynamic covers for the satellite–failed to detach, resulting in it not achieving enough lift to make orbit.  The satellite is suspected to have re-entered and burned up.
“Only one fairing was ejected 216 seconds after launch with the other section remaining in place until the Science and Technology Satellite-2 (STSAT-2) separated from the second stage rocket 540 seconds into the flight, the ministry in charge of the country’s science and technology policies said. ‘The fairings weigh 300kg or three times more than the scientific satellite, making it effectively impossible for the second stage rocket to generate the necessary thrust to keep the satellite in orbit,’ said Vice Science and Technology Minister Kim Jung-hyun.”

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Afghanistan, Coalition/Allies, Defense Department, Soutwest Asia

Stavridis: Afghanistan Situation Challenging, But Winnable

DefenseLink News Article: Stavridis: Afghanistan Situation Challenging, But Winnable.

“The situation in Afghanistan is “extremely serious,” Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis wrote, but he expressed confidence that “the coalition, working with the Afghan people, will ultimately win.”

Adm. Stavridis, the new NATO commander and former commander of US Southern Command, is at least not pulling punches.  He laid out what he sees as the keys to success in Afghanistan, and none of them are easy. Stopping collateral damage, balancing civil and military activities, and training the Afghan forces–all of these are pretty traditional counterinsurgency tasks made all the much harder by the geography and political economy of Afghanistan.  And then there’s owning the information war:

— Effective strategic communication. Messages must be well defined and communicated to the citizens of Afghanistan as well as to the 42 nations that make up the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force there, Stavridis said. Meanwhile, he cited the need for a truthful, realistic antidote to negative Taliban messaging.

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