During a visit to an aerospace facility~, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un saw a completed military spy satellite that his country is planned to launch shortly. He highlighted space-based reconnaissance as critical for confronting the United States and South Korea.
Kim authorized an unclear “future action plan” in preparation for the satellite launch during his visit on Tuesday, according to North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday. North Korea has not specified a target date for the launch, which some analysts believe may take place within the next few weeks. Although prior missile and rocket tests have proved North Korea’s ability to transport a satellite into orbit, this launch would utilize long-range missile technology prohibited by previous U.N. Security Council resolutions.
However, there are certain concerns about the satellite’s capacity. According to some South Korean analysts, the satellite depicted in North Korean official media images looks to be too small and poorly built to handle high-resolution pictures. North Korean propaganda provided low-resolution photos of previous missile launches. According to South Korea’s Foreign Ministry, North Korea has yet to notify international maritime and telecommunications authorities of any planned launches. It said a North Korean satellite launch would violate numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions prohibiting the North from using ballistic technologies and would “threaten regional peace and stability.”
“The announcement of the satellite launch plan demonstrates once more that the North Korean regime is preoccupied with continuing its illegal provocations while ignoring the plight of its people,” the ministry said in a statement, referring to North Korea’s broken economy and growing international isolation. According to Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, the next step in North Korea’s launch preparations, or the “future action plan” described by state media, might be putting the satellite on what would presumably be a three-stage space rocket. Depending on how North Korean preparations go, the launch may take place as early as mid-June, though Pyongyang might alternatively plan the event to coincide with significant state anniversaries in July, September, or October, according to the professor.
According to the North Korea-focused 38 North website, recent commercial satellite photographs show accelerated construction activities at North Korea’s northwest rocket launch pad, where the country last completed a satellite launch in 2016. According to 38 North, the activities include building on the facility’s main satellite launch pad and possibly efforts to establish a new launch pad at the site’s edge near the sea. Spy satellites are among the advanced weaponry systems promised by Kim Jong Un. Solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered submariners, hypersonic missiles, and multiwarhead missiles are also on his wish list.
North Korea has tested some of these weapons in recent months, including its first flight test of a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) last month, but experts think the North may require additional time and technological advances to make those systems operational. In reaction to North Korean plans to launch a military surveillance satellite, Japan’s military instructed troops last month to activate missile interceptors and prepare to shoot down satellite fragments that may fall on Japanese territory.
North Korea sent its first and second Earth observation satellites into orbit in 2012 and 2016, respectively, but neither relayed imagery back to the country, according to outside analysts. The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions in response to those launches. North Korea has escaped new Security Council sanctions for its recent ballistic tests in 2022 and this year, as Moscow and Beijing continue to obstruct US-led efforts to increase pressure on Pyongyang, highlighting a schism between the council’s permanent members exacerbated by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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