North Korea claims its latest satellite launch exploded mid-flight

Seoul/Tokyo:

North Korea said its attempt to launch a new military reconnaissance satellite ended in failure on Monday when a newly developed rocket engine exploded during flight.

The attempt came just hours after Pyongyang issued a warning that it would attempt to launch a satellite by June 4, in what would have been its second spy satellite in orbit.

Instead, the launch became the latest failure for nuclear-armed North Korea, following two other violent accidents last year. It successfully placed its first spy satellite into orbit in November.

“The launch of the new satellite-carrying rocket failed when it exploded in mid-air during the flight of the first stage,” the deputy director general of North Korea’s National Aerospace Technology Administration said in a report carried by state media.

An initial analysis suggested the cause was a newly developed liquid-fuel rocket engine, but other possible causes were being investigated, the report said.

Officials in South Korea and Japan had previously reported that the launch appeared to have failed.

North Korea fired the projectile southward off its west coast at around 10:44 pm (1344 GMT), the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The JCS said it detected a large amount of rocket debris in the sea just two minutes after launch.

The object launched by North Korea disappeared in the Yellow Sea, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.

“These launches violate relevant security council resolutions and are a serious matter that concerns the security of our people,” Hayashi said.

The United States condemned the launch, “which incorporated technologies that are directly related to the DPRK’s ballistic missile program and occurred in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions,” a State Department spokesperson said.

The launch came hours after China, South Korea and Japan concluded a rare tripartite summit in Seoul.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called on North Korea not to proceed with the launch. Chinese Premier Li Qiang did not mention the launch but called on all parties to reduce tensions on the peninsula.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed video of what appeared to be an orange dot flying across the night sky and then catching fire in an area near the border between China and North Korea.

The launch prompted public warnings in several areas of Japan, which were later withdrawn after it became clear that the rocket would not fly over the islands.

Several failures, one success

The North’s first attempt to launch the new Chollima-1 satellite rocket, on May 31 last year, ended after a failure in the second phase. State media attributed this setback to an unstable and unreliable new engine and fuel system.

South Korea recovered the wreckage of that satellite from the sea and said an analysis showed it had no significant utility as a reconnaissance platform.

Another attempt in August also ended in failure, with rocket booster stages experiencing problems, resulting in payloads falling into the sea.

North Korean space authorities described the failure in August, after the rocket’s booster had a problem in its third stage, as “not a major problem” in terms of the overall reliability of the rocket system.

In February, US space experts said North Korea’s first spy satellite, dubbed Malligyong-1, was “alive”, after detecting changes in its orbit that suggested Pyongyang was successfully controlling the spacecraft – although its capabilities remain unknown.

North Korean state media reported that the satellite transmitted photos of the Pentagon and the White House, among other areas, but did not release any of the images.

The successful launch in November was the first after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a rare trip abroad in September and visited Russia’s most modern space launch center, where President Vladimir Putin promised to help Pyongyang building satellites.

Neither country has detailed the extent of this future aid, which could violate UN Security Council resolutions against North Korea.

Russian experts visited North Korea to help with its space satellite and rocket program, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported, citing an unnamed senior South Korean defense official.

Pyongyang has said it needs a military reconnaissance satellite to increase monitoring of U.S. and South Korean military activities.

(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)