송상호
| 2023-08-24 07:29:49
(3rd LD) N Korea-space vehicle
(3rd LD) Claimed N. Korean space rocket launch ends in failure: S. Korean military
(ATTN: UPDATES throughout; AMENDS headline, byline)
By Song Sang-ho and Lee Minji
SEOUL, Aug. 24 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's claimed space rocket launch ended in failure early Thursday, the South Korean military said, the second such botched attempt following its earlier failure in May.
The assessment by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) came soon after the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said its second launch of a "military reconnaissance satellite" failed due to an error in the emergency blasting system during the third-stage flight, vowing to conduct another launch in October.
The launch came amid a major South Korea-U.S. military exercise and after a landmark trilateral summit among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo, where their leaders highlighted their commitment to sturdier cooperation against Pyongyang's evolving military threats.
The JCS said that at 3:50 a.m., it detected the launch fired southward from the Tongchang-ri area on the North's west coast and that it had tracked and monitored the rocket immediately after liftoff.
"Our military assesses (the launch) as a failure," the JCS said in a statement, describing the move as a "clear" violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions banning any launch using ballistic missile technology.
It added that while conducting the allies' Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise in a "high-intensity" manner, the South Korean military will maintain a "firm" readiness posture based on capabilities to respond "overwhelmingly" to any North Korean provocations.
According to the North's state media, the flights of the rocket's first and second stages were "normal, but the error occurred in the later stage flight.
"The NADA said that it would make clear in a short span of time the reason why the emergency blasting system was operated abnormally," the KCNA said, referring to the North's National Aerospace Development Administration by its acronym.
In the lead-up to the launch, the North reportedly informed Japan of a plan to launch a satellite and designate three maritime danger zones -- one west of the Korean Peninsula, the second in the East China Sea and the third to the east of the Philippine island of Luzon -- between Thursday and Aug. 31.
The launch window overlaps the annual UFS exercise that kicked off Monday and is set to end Aug. 31. The North has long denounced the allies' joint military drills as a rehearsal for an invasion.
Pyongyang launched its first military spy satellite, the Malligyong-1, mounted on a new type of rocket named the Chollima-1, on May 31. But the rocket crashed into the Yellow Sea after an "abnormal starting" of the second-stage engine.
The South retrieved parts of the North Korean satellite wreckage from the botched launch on May 31 and concluded that it had no military value.
The North has been striving to secure a space-based reconnaissance asset as part of key defense projects unveiled at the eighth congress of its ruling party in early 2021.
Observers said the North appears intent on securing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets as it is far behind South Korea and the United States in ISR capabilities despite its focus on developing an array of formidable weapons systems, namely tactical nuclear arms.
The launch also coincided with Pyongyang's expected efforts to liven up the festive mood ahead of the 75th anniversary of the founding of its regime on Sept. 9, the observers said.
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