It appears that the North Koreans are preparing for a response to any United Nations sanctions the US may be trying to get implemented in response to their recent nuclear test. In fact US Secretary of State John Kerry is in China trying to get the Chinese government to agree to a sanctions deal. A rocket test would be a fitting way to thumb their noses at any UN sanctions that may be passed:
Speculation mounted Friday that North Korea is preparing a rocket or long-range missile launch to follow its recent nuclear test, with Japan reportedly ordering its military to shoot down any projectile that threatened its territory.
With existing UN Security Council resolutions banning North Korea from the use of ballistic missile technology, any launch would be a further slap in the face of the international community which is struggling to find a united response to the January 6 nuclear test.
Following a Japanese report that cited government sources as saying a rocket launch could come as early as next week, two US defence officials confirmed ongoing activity at the North’s Sohae satellite complex.
“The indications are that they are preparing for some kind of launch,” one US official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Could be for a satellite or a space vehicle — there are a lot of guesses. North Korea does this periodically — they move things back and forth,” the official said.
The United States regularly monitors North Korea from space, while Japan began satellite monitoring of the country in 2003.
North Korea successfully put a satellite into orbit with its Unha-3 carrier in December 2012. [AFP]
You can read more at the link, but the best report I have read about any possible launch is over at 38 North which has a lot of good commercial imagery of the test site and have settled on this conclusion of what the North Koreans are doing:
The level of activity throughout the Sohae facility at the launch pad, covered rail station, VIP housing area, launch control bunker and NADA facilities (particularly the helipad) raise justifiable concerns that North Korea may be preparing for the launch of a space launch vehicle. Moreover, the level of activity throughout the site is unlikely to be justified by what appears to be an imminent rocket engine test. If Pyongyang is preparing for a rocket launch, available imagery indicates that a launch is not imminent and that the North may be at an early stage of preparation.
However, there is a high level of uncertainty about this judgment for a number of reasons. First, the gantry tower work platforms are covered by an environmental cover and are folded forward, obscuring any view of whether a rocket is inside or not. Second, the movable transfer structure could easily allow for stages to be assembled and transferred to the gantry tower during periods of darkness or heavy cloud cover. In the earlier image the structure did not appear to have moved since the snowfall observed in a December 4 image as its tracks remained snow covered. Since the entire launch pad area is now clear of snow, any movement by the structure cannot be determined. Third, commercial satellite imagery coverage of the test site is not continuous and therefore observers only have snapshots of activity at the launch pad.
If North Korea follows previous pre-launch preparation practices, we would expect to see in the coming days increased site-wide activity, traffic at the fuel/oxidizer storage bunkers, activity at the launch pad and the presence of tracking equipment. [38 North]
Recent satellite imagery shows no signs of North Korea making rocket or nuclear test preparations, rendering it impossible for such a test to happen on or before a key national holiday this week, a U.S. research institute said Monday.
Concerns have persisted that the North could conduct such tests around the 70th anniversary on Oct. 10 of the country’s ruling Workers’ Party in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions after Pyongyang strongly hinted at such possibilities.
But commercial satellite imagery, taken as recently as Sept. 27, shows that there is no such preparation going on at the North’s Sohae Satellite Launching Station or the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, making it impossible for such tests to take place this week, said Joel Wit, editor of the website 38 North.
“I think the bottom line here is that all these reports about possible long-range rocket or nuclear tests on or before Oct. 10th are just all wrong, all speculation. No evidence to support it whatsoever,” Wit said at a press briefing.
“I would even go as far to say that the North Koreans are probably having a lot of fun with their periodic interviews, talking about how it’s their right to launch a space-launch vehicle and explore space and everyone runs off and writes a story about it as if it’s going to happen tomorrow and it isn’t,” he said. [Yonhap]
Analysts at 38North have a good posting up about why the Unha-3 rocket that North Korea has threatened to launch again is likely intended for space launch purposes:
But if the Unha-3 is intended for use as an ICBM, it’s not a very good one. The second- and third-stage engines don’t have enough thrust to efficiently deliver heavy warheads; a militarized Unha might deliver 800 kilograms of payload to Washington, DC. The North Koreans can probably make a nuclear warhead that small, but it would be a tight fit. With bigger upper-stage engines, which we know the North Koreans have, they could deliver substantially larger payloads. This would allow bigger and more powerful warheads, more decoys to counter US missile defenses, and a generally tougher and more robust system.
The Unha is also too heavy and cumbersome to be survivable in wartime. Too big for any mobile transporter, it can only be launched from fixed sites. Its highly corrosive liquid propellants require hours of pre-launch preparations. That’s a bad combination for North Korea; their fixed launch sites are going to be watched very closely, and particularly in a crisis, any indication that an ICBM is being prepared for launch could trigger a pre-emptive strike.
The same could be said of the old Soviet R-7. As an ICBM, it was pretty much a dud—the USSR never deployed more than 10, and retired them after less than a decade. As a space launch vehicle, its descendants are still in service today.
The North Koreans could press the Unha-3 into limited service as an ICBM, just as the USSR did with the R-7—a temporary measure, until something better is available. They can almost certainly build something better, and they appear to be trying. The KN-08 missile mock-ups, twice paraded through Pyongyang, are exactly the sort of thing a nation like North Korea would build if it wanted to use its eclectic mix of early 1960s rocket technologies to build an ICBM. It is small enough to be mobile and therefore survivable but with the performance (barely) to reach the enemy’s homeland. The Unha-3, by comparison, looks like it was designed to launch satellites rather than warheads. [38North]
I would think the Japanese would want the Aegis ships deployed more to collect data on the rocket launch with their radars:
The Japanese government is mulling deploying Aegis destroyers in the East Sea and the East China Sea to intercept a long-range rocket North Korea plans to launch around the 70th anniversary of its ruling Workers’ Party on October 10.
Japan’s Sankei Shimbun daily reported on Sunday that Tokyo is considering deploying the destroyers equipped with sea-based missile defenses to the East Sea and the East China Sea to prevent the North’s rocket or its debris from falling on Japanese territory.
The paper said Japan is also considering deploying the Air Self-Defense Forces’ surface-to-air guided Patriot missiles in the area near the capital city and Okinawa. [KBS World Radio]
I would be surprised if North Korea does not notify the IMO and ICAO of their expected rocket launch because of how they have been wanting to normalize their space program and not link it to their ICBM development program. This could be a sign that they are not 100% confident that the rocket launch will be ready by October 10th. I guess we will see what happens:
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said North Korea has not given them any notice regarding a long-range rocket launch.
The Voice of American said on Saturday that the two international bodies confirmed via email that Pyongyang has not given any notice.
North Korea had notified both organizations of its plan prior to its long-range rocket launch in December 2012, informing them of when the launch will take place and where the rocket will fall.
North Korea has suggested the possibility of launching a space rocket around October 10th, the anniversary of the founding of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party. North’s Korean Central News Agency carried an interview earlier this month with a key scientist, who discussed the possibility of such a plan. [KBS World Radio]
According to this report there has been no signs of an impending launch yet:
South Korea sees no signs of North Korea preparing to fire a long-range rocket, the Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday, despite reports that the North plans to test-launch a rocket carrying a satellite.
Citing “sources in a number of governments,” Japan’s Kyodo News Agency reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered its National Aerospace Development Administration earlier this year to prepare to test-launch a rocket carrying a satellite in October to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the nation.
The U.S., Japan and South Korea suspect the project will “effectively be a test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile” that the North is allegedly developing, according to the report.
“South Korean and U.S. authorities are closely monitoring the North Korean movements,” Defense Ministry vice spokesman Nah Seung-yong told a regular briefing. “But we’ve yet to confirm any specific signs or movements of its actual firing of missiles.” [Yonhap]
