North Korea much anticipated space launch of supposedly domestically produced reconnaissance satellite ended in failure:
An apparent part of a purported North Korean space launch vehicle is seen in waters some 200 kilometers west of the southwestern island of Eocheong on May 31, 2023, in this photo provided by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Yonhap)
North Korea fired what it claims to be a “space launch vehicle” southward Wednesday, but it fell into the Yellow Sea after an “abnormal” flight, the South Korean military said, in a botched launch that defied international criticism and warnings.
The North confirmed the failure, saying its new “Chollima-1” rocket carrying a military reconnaissance satellite, “Malligyong-1,” fell into the sea due to the “abnormal starting of the second-stage engine,” according to its official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). It plans to conduct a second launch as soon as possible, the KCNA said.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launch from Tongchang-ri on the North’s west coast at 6:29 a.m. and the projectile fell into waters some 200 kilometers west of the South’s southwestern island of Eocheong following its flight over the waters far west of the border island of Baengnyeong.
You can read more at the link, but what is most interesting about this failed launch is that North Korea’s state media the KCNA actually admitted to it at least in their English language reporting. The KCNA also said that North Korea vowed to launch the rocket again. However, the last time they had a major failure of a space launch was all the way back in 2012 and it took them 8 months before they successfully launched again.
Overall though this is pretty embarrassing for the Kim regime considering South Korea just last week put 8 satellites into orbit using a domestically produced rocket. With that said these failed launches are not always failures if you know what went wrong and can fix it on the next launch. We will see probably in the coming months if North Korea learned from this failure.
It makes me wonder how many other underground Christian groups are operating in North Korea?:
st as they had every Sunday at 5 a.m., the five Christians gathered at the farmhouse for prayer and Bible study. But this time the police were waiting for them.
Tipped off by an informant, authorities arrested the believers on charges of believing in God, a crime in a country where all religion is illegal – except for the reverence everyone is required to show for the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, and its past leaders, his father and grandfather.
Sources told Radio Free Asia’s Korean Service that the Christians, arrested on April 30, are relatives who met weekly at the farmhouse in Tongam village, outside Sunchon city in South Pyongan province, in central North Korea.
“At the site of the worship service, the police retrieved dozens of Bible booklets and arrested all in attendance,” a resident of the province told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Thanks to a tip from @martyn_williams I took a look at the warning areas for the upcoming (NET May 31) North Korean recon sat launch. The map below shows the launch site, polygonal warning areas and (orange lines) my fit to the trajectories. (1/n)… pic.twitter.com/rOkGyKDkgw
Just think that for housing this is about as good as it gets for most people in North Korea:
North Korea has held a ceremony to mark the completion of building another housing district in Pyongyang as part of the country’s project to construct 50,000 units of new homes in the capital by 2025, state media reported Monday.
The North held the ceremony to celebrate the completion of the construction of new residential areas in the Taephyong district in Pyongyang on Sunday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
The Taephyong district in western Pyongyang is located near Mangyongdae, the birthplace of North Korea’s late founder Kim Il-sung, also the grandfather of the current leader Kim Jong-un.
It looks like Kim Jong-un is making sure we are building up to another “crisis” on the peninsula with his expected space launch:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspected the country’s first military reconnaissance satellite and gave the green light for its next action plan, Pyongyang’s state media said Wednesday, adding that the satellite is “ready for loading” on a rocket.
Kim made the on-site inspection to the Non-permanent Satellite Launch Preparatory Committee a day earlier to check the overall status of the spy satellite and approved of its “future action plan,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, in a move that signals the launch could be imminent.
“After acquainting himself in detail with the work of the committee, he inspected the military reconnaissance satellite No. 1 which is ready for loading after undergoing the final general assembly check and space environment test,” it said in an English-language dispatch.
Considering North Korea’s stated commitment to expanding its nuclear arsenal this news should not be surprising:
Recent commercial satellite imagery indicates North Korea continues to expand and refurbish its Yongbyon nuclear complex, reinforcing concerns the country is acting on leader Kim Jong-un’s recent call for an “exponential” increase in its nuclear arsenal, 38 North, a U.S. think tank, said Friday.
The report based on satellite imagery taken April 20 said significant construction and improvement activities have been detected throughout the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, particularly around the Experimental Light Water Reactor (ELWR), the 5 MWe Reactor and within the uranium conversion area.
North Korea has officially responded to the US-ROK summit last week where President Biden said the regime would be destroyed if they used nuclear weapons. None of these insults and threats coming from Kim Yo-jong should be surprising in response considering North Korea’s past history of insulting US and ROK presidents:
In her comments published on state media, Kim Yo Jong said the U.S.-South Korean agreement reflected the allies’ “most hostile and aggressive will of action” against the North and will push regional peace and security into “more serious danger.”
Kim, who is one of her brother’s top foreign policy officials, said the summit further strengthened the North’s conviction to enhance its nuclear arms capabilities. She said it would be especially important for the North to perfect the “second mission of the nuclear war deterrent,” in an apparent reference to the country’s escalatory nuclear doctrine that calls for preemptive nuclear strikes over a broad range of scenarios where it may perceive its leadership as under threat.
She lashed out at Biden over his blunt warning that North Korean nuclear aggression would result in the end of its regime, calling him senile and “too miscalculating and irresponsibly brave.” However, she said the North wouldn’t simply dismiss his words as a “nonsensical remark from the person in his dotage.”
Here is the latest person to call for the redeployment of tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea:
The United States should redeploy its tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula to make US extended deterrence credible against escalating threats from North Korea, said John Bolton, former White House national security adviser, on Tuesday. This strategy would also enable South Korea to buy time to weigh up the gains and losses of nuclear armament, he added.
“I’ve refused to give up on the possibility of stopping North Korea from getting deliverable nuclear weapons in the first place. That should remain (at) the center of our attention. This is not over yet,” Bolton said at the Asan Plenum 2023 hosted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
You can read more at the link, but the redeployment of nuclear weapons Bolton says is also a way to hold China accountable for allowing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program in the first place.
