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North Korea's Satellite Launch Flops

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 12, 2012
Filed under

NBC space expert [Jim Oberg] on North Korea satellite launch, MSNBC
“The significance of the launch, of course, is the booster itself. The booster is bigger than it has to be. It’s based on Han missiles. It’s not a military missile … but it’s darn close. Like we’ve said on TV, this rocket is not a weapon, but it’s maybe 98 percent of one. It can be converted all too easily and all too frighteningly into a weapon, and they don’t need it. They don’t need a booster of this size, of this cost, to launch a satellite they say they want to. They seem to be overdoing it, and that can hurt a country, not help it.”
Keith’s note: North Korea’s rocket launch – like the rest of the country – was a total failure. It broke apart a minute or so after launch. Now they can get back to starving their population to pay for it.

North Korea gets ready to launch, Nature
“The satellite looks remarkably similar to the South Korean’s first satellite, which was launched in 1992, but there’s no way to tell what it’s actual capabilities might be according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer with the Harvard Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics and rocket enthusiast. The one thing McDowell is sure of is that it would make a lousy spy satellite. “We’re talking kilometre or at best hundred meter resolution,” he says. In other words, they would be better off doing their spying on Google earth.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

25 responses to “North Korea's Satellite Launch Flops”

  1. John Kavanagh says:
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    “they would be better off doing their spying on Google Earth”

    But what if it is a timely intelligence matter?

    Sure, if North Korea is only doing historical analysis of satellite imagery on dates for when Google has images for in its archive – or if a commercial remote sensing provider has shared images publicly. 

    On the other hand, if North Korea wants to image South Korean military infrastructure in January 2012, it’ll take Google awhile to ingest that.

    However, the primary objective for North Korea is likely vetting their launch vehicle for intercontinental delivery of nuclear weapons. The spy sat payload is just a nice to have.

    • Anonymous says:
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      Its not an imaging bird, more than likely it carries a comms payload.

      • Jonathan McDowell says:
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         They did claim it was a ‘weather satellite’ at one point. But I don’t put a lot of weight on that. Could easily be just a simple  technology payload with a transmitter.

      • Stephen431 says:
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        The payload is probably just a shortwave radio and a few bags of sand. 

  2. Joe Cooper says:
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    Still kinda cool. They’ve never successfully lofted a sat before so this’d be their first. If they did have a top-grade, expensive, modern sat, I wouldn’t put it on that rocket.

  3. Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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    The stated orbital inclination and launch vector area described in the international Notice To Airmen bulletin is worthless for earth observing or any kind of recon.  The best they can hope for is the darn booster doesn’t explode and the launch is reasonably successful on Yuri’s Day / Space Day / April 12 —my best guess for a launch date , for maximum propaganda value and bragging rights, which is probably the real mission objective.

    • gogosian2061 says:
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      ** “AHEM”! ** There is a North Korean Holiday on their calendar of considerable national pride & nationalistic importance for those above the DMZ = Its founding celebrations & “Party Congress” for a day prior to the “launch window” [revised for the 12@facebook-5727834 – 14 April @ Korean time zone]!

      Just as South Koreans regard anniversaries of “The Inchon Landing” as akin to American “Fourth of July” celebrations, the North Koreans also have their calendar events, too. We ignore those, at our own perils.

      Most disturbing to me = An increasing drumbeat of “war chants” from one of the major US political parties, which ignores major two changed factors, which have dramatically altered the ‘status quo’, since the early 1950’s invasion of South Korea.

      ONE is the advent of theater level “Ballistic Missile Defenses [BMD]” now ‘on alert’ in The Philippines, Japan and South Korea – Adjacent to the Korean Peninsula.

      SECOND is the ‘tiered defense’ concept of allied BMD where countries adjacent to North Korea HAVE THE OPTION to “fire first” IF [!] they and their territorial integrity / sovereignty are blatantly threatened.

      US Navy ‘AEGIS’ cruisers – using Standard Missile 3’s – could, if needed,  take “mid-course” BMD intercepts, of debris or payloads missed on “first shots:. 

      Tracking and overhead surveillance capabilities are most plentiful.  So, too, are encrypted telecommunications among the defenders.

      Terminal, point defenses for the United States are BMD sites at Alaska and Vandenberg AFB, CA – Only on the West Coast, however, for now.

      It’s a far different world than the policy & budget battles pre- dating Reagan’s “Strategic Defense Initiative [SDI]” of the 1980’s — Going back as far as the Nixon administration [1969 inaugural] – then Ford ‘transition’ after Nixon resignation from office – when the only one permitted “SAFEGUARD BMD site” in North Dakota had achieved its “Interim Operational Capability [IOC – in July, 1975] – fully compliant with the US – Soviet Union bi-lateral “ABM Treaty” [1972] and its “Protocol” [1974].

      -30-

    • gogosian2061 says:
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       YET TO BE HEARD FROM – United Nations COSPAR which catalogs any   “notices of intent” & orbital parameters from North Korea to orbit space vehicles for international cooperating tracking — or — intelligence- based confirmation of announced intent!

  4. Anonymous says:
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    Nobody seems to have mentioned that maybe the annointed 1 wants to get something up there before the ROK

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      I had the same thought. What if its as simple as north vs. south pride? Having a working LV is a feather in their political and technological cap and we should consider the possibility that there is no hostile intent in this launch. We launch stuff every month; does that makes us bad guys too? The media and the government should be more careful about what they say or the US will become labeled as the instigators of hostilities. There are probably more people in the world who would side with the little guy than the US.

      Steve

  5. mfwright says:
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    I think they want to launch a satellite to simply have bragging rights as not many countries can put a object into orbit. 

    There is also this theory it can be used as a ICBM (but are their nukes too big for this size of rocket?). However, with this being election year for US, nothing beats a war from distracting the commoners.

  6. no one of consequence says:
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    North Korea … never believes … it can ever … go too far.

    A psychopathic country. Heading towards total annihilation. Through “juche”.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Mr. C,

      With respect, don’t assume that the rest of the world necessarily sees us in the west as we see ourselves.  Differences in experience (and in the news reported by the media) can make for very different perceptions, amongst the power elite and the commoners alike.

      Steve

      • no one of consequence says:
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         It’s really creepy there … the concept of being a “child-like race”, the world arrayed around them – while starving the whole time. And on the outside, this brittle, harsh exterior with marketed “potemkin” illusions.

        Reminds me a lot of Pol Pot and Cambodia in certain ways.

        Contacts with both Korea’s lead to this perception.

  7. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    Alan Shepard flew to space on an ICBM. So did all the Gemini astronauts. Soyuz is based on the R-7, an ICBM. Japan has a civilian launch vehicle and nuclear power industry. They could probably ‘weaponize’ both faster than Iran.

    That North Korea is doing this, which they can little afford, to impress it’s own impoverished population and as a gesture to the international community in paranoid self defense should be taken into account…

    …but, let ye without sin cast the first ABM.

    I’m not even particularly religious, I just don’t like hypocrisy is all.

    tinker

  8. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    Tally ho! For good or ill, she’s off the ground. How high it get’s is another matter.

    tinker

  9. Rich Kolker says:
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    Reports say it failed early in flight.  No exact flight times of when it broke up, but a bit of reading between the lines of what they’re saying makes it sound like around Max-Q.

  10. Monroe2020 says:
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    Epic failure

  11. Doug Booker says:
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    Was it a satellite launch failure or the successful launch of their ICBM or IRBM first stage?  

  12. Gonzo_Skeptic says:
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    Now they can get back to starving their population to pay for it.

    I’m betting there will be a few less mouths to feed today after this highly visible failure.

  13. Joe Cooper says:
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    How sad on so many levels. Maybe some day when they don’t have such selfish leaders they’ll be able watch winning rockets on full stomachs.

  14. Joe Cooper says:
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    US cut food aid. Layers and layers of fail for the norks.