North Korea attempted to launch a new military reconnaissance satellite on Monday, but it ended in failure when a newly developed rocket engine exploded in flight. This attempt came shortly after Pyongyang issued a warning that it would try to launch a satellite by June 4, which would have been its second spy satellite in orbit. However, the launch became the North’s latest failure, following two other unsuccessful attempts last year.
North Korea had successfully placed its first spy satellite in orbit in November. The deputy director general of North Korea’s National Aerospace Technology Administration reported that the launch of the new satellite carrier rocket failed when it exploded in mid-air during the flight of the first stage. An initial analysis suggested that the cause was a newly developed liquid fuel rocket motor, but other possible causes were being investigated.
Officials in South Korea and Japan had earlier reported that the launch seemed to have failed. North Korea fired the projectile on a southern path off its west coast at around 10:44 p.m. (1344 GMT), and the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff detected a large amount of debris from the rocket in the sea just two minutes after launch. The object launched by North Korea disappeared over the Yellow Sea, and the Japanese government presumed that nothing had entered space.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi stated that these launches are in violation of relevant security council resolutions and are a serious matter concerning the safety of their people. Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed video of what appeared to be an orange dot flying into the night sky and then bursting into flames in an area close to the border between China and North Korea.
The launch appeared to originate from Dongchang-ri, a north-western area of the country where North Korea’s main space flight centre is based. The Japanese government issued an emergency warning for residents in the south to take cover from the possible threat of a North Korean missile, before lifting the warning and stating that it was not expected to fly over Japanese territory.
This launch would have been North Korea’s attempt to place a second spy satellite into orbit. After several failed attempts, North Korea successfully placed its first such satellite in orbit in November. The North’s first bid to launch the new Chollima-1 satellite rocket, on May 31 last year, ended after a failure in the second stage. After the May launch attempt, South Korea retrieved the wreckage of the satellite from the sea and said an analysis showed it had no meaningful use as a reconnaissance platform. Another attempt in August also ended in failure, with stages of the rocket boosters experiencing problems resulting in the payloads crashing into the sea.
In February, U.S. space experts said North Korea’s first spy satellite, dubbed the Malligyong-1, was “alive”, after detecting changes in its orbit that suggested Pyongyang was successfully controlling the spacecraft, although its capabilities remain unknown.
The successful November launch was the first after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a rare trip abroad in September and toured Russia’s most modern space launch centre, where President Vladimir Putin promised to help Pyongyang build satellites. Pyongyang has said it needs a military reconnaissance satellite to boost monitoring of U.S. and South Korean military activities.