Seoul: North Korea launched a military spy satellite this week, but it crashed into the sea soon after as an “accident occurred” during its flight, state media said. Pyongyang does not have a functioning satellite in space and leader Kim Jong-Un has made developing a military spy satellite a top priority for his regime, personally overseeing some launch preparations.
North Korean space authorities “launched a military reconnaissance satellite, ‘Malligyong-1’, mounted on a new-type carrier rocket, ‘Chollima-1’, at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground in Cholsan County of North Pyongan Province at 6:27 on May 31,” the official Korean Central News Agency reported.
But the rocket crashed into the sea “after losing thrust due to the abnormal starting of the second-stage engine after the separation of the first stage during the normal flight,” it said.
Authorities will “thoroughly investigate the serious defects revealed in the satellite launch, take urgent scientific and technological measures to overcome them and conduct the second launch as soon as possible”.
South Korea’s military had detected the launch of the satellite, which it said disappeared from radar early and fell into the sea due to abnormal flight, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
Since 1998, Pyongyang has launched five satellites, three of which failed immediately and two of which appeared to have been put into orbit — but signals from those launches have never been independently detected, indicating they may have malfunctioned.
