North Korea says its spy satellite launch failed and vows to try again
North Korea has once again sought to put a spy satellite into orbit after its first attempt failed last May due to problems with the second stage of the flight. The latest attempt failed due to “a fault in the emergency detonation system during the third-stage flight,” according to Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency. The official news agency said the first and second stages of the missile were operating normally.
South Korea said it had detected what North Korea described as a space launch vehicle flying over international waters west of the Korean peninsula. The South Korean military has tracked the flight since it took off at around 3:50 a.m. from Tongchang-ri in the North, and also declared it a failure.
Pyongyang warned in May that Kim’s regime needed a “reliable reconnaissance information system” so that it could “control the enemy’s military activities in real time,” citing joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea. North Korea’s latest launch came as the two allies conduct an 11-day exercise that includes field training events based on war scenarios.
North Korea’s first attempt to launch a satellite, on May 31, failed when “serious” defects caused the second stage of the new type of rocket to malfunction. It lost propulsion in the air due to engine failure and plunged into the sea between South Korea and China, landing on the maritime border between their exclusive economic zones. The South Korean military recovered some debris from the satellite launch, and said the satellite was not advanced enough to conduct space reconnaissance.
The North Korean military vowed at the time to “conduct the second launch as soon as possible through various partial tests”.
Days before Thursday’s launch, North Korea informed Japan that it plans to launch a satellite between August 24 and 31, without specifying the type of satellite.
Tokyo announced Thursday that parts of the North Korean missile appeared to have fallen into the sea between Japan, the Korean peninsula, the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean, outside the sea areas announced earlier by Pyongyang.
The United States, South Korea and Japan condemned the missile launch, which is a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions that punish the regime for using ballistic missile technology.
North Korea has demonstrated its ability to master challenging technology through repeated testing and improvements. After several missile failures in 2017, North Korea successfully launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile – on an “altitude” trajectory, ascending to the top and plunging into the sea.
Since then, it has improved its technology, firing more than 100 missiles since the start of 2022. While many of these missiles represent only incremental progress, last month leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the second test of a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile. , which is Hwaseong’s missile. 18.
Solid-fuel missiles are easier to operate than liquid-propelled missiles and faster to deploy as they can be moved into position and fired immediately, without the preparations required for liquid-propelled missiles. This makes it difficult to detect them in advance.
Source link
