Tag Archives: Satellite Launch

U.S. and allies aim to track North Korean rocket launch

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – The United States has deployed missile defense systems that will work with the Japanese and South Korean militaries to track a rocket North Korea says it will launch some time over an 18-day period beginning Monday.

China, the North’s sole major ally but opposed to Pyongyang’s nuclear program, appealed for calm.

North Korea has notified U.N. agencies it will launch a rocket carrying what it called an earth observation satellite some time between Feb. 8 and Feb. 25, triggering international opposition from governments that see it as a long-range missile test.

North Korea says it has a sovereign right to pursue a space program. But it is barred under U.N. Security Council resolutions from using ballistic missile technology.

Coming so soon after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, on Jan. 6, also barred by Security Council resolutions, a rocket launch would raise concern that it plans to fit nuclear warheads on its missiles, giving it the capability to strike South Korea, Japan and possibly the U.S. West Coast.

China has told North Korea that it does not want to see anything happen that could further raise tension, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, describing “a serious situation”, after a special envoy from China visited North Korea this week.

The United States has urged China to use its influence to rein in its neighbor.

Speaking to President Park Geun-hye, Chinese President Xi Jinping said he hoped all parties could bear in mind the broader picture of maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula, and “calmly deal with the present situation”, China’s Foreign Ministry said.

“The peninsula cannot be nuclearized, and cannot have war or chaos,” Xi said, also repeating a call for dialogue.

Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper quoted Pentagon officials as saying that fuelling of the rocket appeared to have begun. It cited satellite footage showing increased activity around the missile launch and fuel storage areas, suggesting preparations for a launch could be completed within “a number of days” at the earliest.

A launch would draw fresh U.S. calls for tougher U.N. sanctions that are already under discussion in response to the nuclear test.

What would likely be an indigenous three-stage rocket will be tracked closely. South Korea and Japan have put their militaries on standby to shoot down the rocket, or its parts, if they go off course and threaten to crash on their territory.

“We will, as we always do, watch carefully if there’s a launch, track the launch, (and) have our missile defense assets positioned and ready,” U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said on Thursday.

“We plan a lot about it. We and our close allies – the Japanese and the South Koreans – are ready for it.”

South Korea has said its Aegis destroyers, its Green Pine anti-ballistic missile radar and early warning and control aircraft Peace Eye are ready.

A U.S. Navy spokesman confirmed the missile tracking ship USNS Howard O. Lorenzen arrived in Japan this week but declined to say if it was in response to the North’s planned launch.

SEARCH FOR CLUES

Boosters and other parts will also be tracked as they splash into the sea, in the hope they can be retrieved and analyzed for clues on Pyongyang’s rocket program.

“Retrieving parts or objects from the launch vehicle are the most important part of the rocket analysis,” said Markus Schiller, a rocketry expert based in Germany.

North Korea said the launch would be during the morning and gave coordinates of where the boosters and payload cover would drop in the Yellow Sea off the Korean Peninsula’s west coast and the Pacific to the east of the Philippines.

The U.S. Navy has sonar equipment and unmanned vehicles that could be used to help recover parts, according to Navy officials. It was not clear if that equipment is in the region.

North Korea last launched a long-range rocket in December 2012, sending what it described as a communications satellite into orbit.

South Korea’s navy retrieved the section of the first stage booster that was part of the fuel tank and one of the four steering engines that confirmed the presence of technology and materials that North Korea had not been known to possess.

Analysis pointed to a launch vehicle capable of carrying a payload of about 500 kg (1,100 lb) more than 10,000 km (6,200 miles), according to South Korea.

A typical nuclear warhead weighs about 300 kg, although North Korea is not believed to have been able to miniaturize a nuclear weapon to that size.

Recovered parts allowed experts to conclude that the second stage booster likely used Soviet-era Scud missile technology and did not use advanced propellant, indicating the rocket was suited for satellite launch but unfit to deliver a warhead.

“My guess is that if you took the rocket they used last time and put a warhead on it you probably would not be able to reach the United States,” said David Wright, co-director and senior scientist at the Global Security Program of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The search for information on the North’s rocket program will not be easy.

“Some of the more interesting parts, high-efficiency engines and guidance systems, are in the upper stages, and those usually fall far out to sea, at high speed into deep water,” said John Schilling, an aerospace engineer.

“Harder to find than that Malaysian airliner everybody has been looking for all last year.”

(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal, David Brunnstrom, Ben Blanchard and Elaine Lies; Editing by Tony Munroe, Robert Birsel and Ralph Boulton)

Pressure mounts on North Korea to abandon rocket launch

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – International pressure grew on North Korea to call off a planned rocket launch, seen by some governments as another missile test, while Japan put its military on alert to shoot down any rocket that threatens its territory.

North Korea notified United Nations agencies on Tuesday of its plan to launch what it called an “earth observation satellite” some time between Feb. 8 and 25.

Pyongyang has said it has a sovereign right to pursue a space program, although the United States and other governments suspect such rocket launches are tests of its missiles.

Japan’s defence minister, Gen Nakatani, told a media briefing on Wednesday he had issued an order to shoot down any “ballistic missile threat”.

Tension rose in East Asia last month after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, this time of what it said was a hydrogen bomb.

A rocket launch coming so soon after would raise concern that North Korea plans to fit nuclear warheads on its missiles, giving it the capability to launch a strike against South Korea, Japan and possibly targets as far away as the U.S. West Coast.

North Korea last launched a long-range rocket in December 2012, sending an object it described as a communications satellite into orbit.

South Korea warned the North it would pay a “severe price” if it goes ahead with the launch.

“North Korea’s notice of the plan to launch a long-range missile, coming at a time when there is a discussion for (U.N.) Security Council sanctions on its fourth nuclear test, is a direct challenge to the international community,” the presidential Blue House said in a statement.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Pyongyang was demonstrating “an outrageous disregard for the universally recognised norms of international law,” while France said the launch would merit a firm response from the international community.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged North Korea not to use ballistic missile technology, which is banned by Security Council resolutions.

‘EXTREMELY CONCERNED’

China, under U.S. pressure to use its influence to rein in the isolated North, said Pyongyang’s right to space exploration was restricted under U.N. resolutions.

China is North Korea’s sole main ally, though Beijing disapproves of its nuclear programme.

“We are extremely concerned about this,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a briefing on Wednesday.

“In the present situation, we hope North Korea exercises restraint on the issue of launching satellites, acts cautiously and does not take any escalatory steps that may further raise tensions on the Korean peninsula.”

Reports of the planned launch also drew fresh U.S. calls for tougher U.N. sanctions that are already under discussion in response to North Korea’s Jan. 6 nuclear test.

A spokeswoman for the International Maritime Organization, a U.N. agency, said it had been told by North Korea of the plan to launch a satellite.

The Washington-based North Korean monitoring project 38 North said commercial satellite images of North Korea’s Sohae launch site taken on Monday showed activity consistent with preparations for a launch within North Korea’s given timeframe, but no indications that this was imminent.

North Korea said the launch would be conducted in the morning one day during the announced period, and gave the coordinates for the locations where the rocket boosters and the cover for the payload would drop.

Those locations are expected to be in the Yellow Sea off the Korean Peninsula’s west coast and in the Pacific Ocean to the east of the Philippines, Pyongyang said.

South Korea told commercial airliners to avoid flying in areas of the rocket’s possible flight path during the period.

(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park in Seoul, Ben Blanchard in Beijing and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Dean Yates and Jonathan Oatis)

North Korea tells U.N. agencies it plans satellite launch

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korea told U.N. agencies on Tuesday it plans to launch a satellite as early as next week, a move that could advance the country’s long-range missile technology after its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6.

News of the planned launch between Feb. 8 and Feb. 25 drew fresh U.S. calls for tougher U.N. sanctions already under discussion in response to North Korea’s nuclear test. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the United Nations needed to “send the North Koreans a swift, firm message.”

Pyongyang has said it has a sovereign right to pursue a space program by launching rockets, although the United States and other governments worry that such launches are missile tests in disguise.

“We have received information from DPRK regarding the launch of earth observation satellite ‘Kwangmyongsong’ between 8-25 February,” a spokeswoman for the International Maritime Organization, a U.N. agency, told Reuters by email.

The International Telecommunication Union, another U.N. agency, told Reuters North Korea had informed it on Tuesday of plans to launch a satellite with a functional duration of four years, in a non-geostationary orbit.

It said the information provided by North Korea, whose official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was incomplete, and that it was seeking more details.

U.S. officials said last week that North Korea was believed to be making preparations for a test launch of a long-range rocket, after activity at its test site was observed by satellite.

The White House said on Tuesday that any satellite launch by North Korea would be viewed as “another destabilizing provocation.” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel, the senior U.S. diplomat for East Asia, told reporters it “argues even more strongly” for tougher U.N. sanctions.

Russel said a launch, “using ballistic missile technology,” would be an “egregious violation” of North Korea’s international obligations.

He said it showed the need “to raise the cost to the leaders through the imposition of tough additional sanctions and of course by ensuring the thorough and rigorous enforcement of the existing sanctions.”

Russel said negotiations were “active” at the United Nations and that the United States and North Korea’s main ally China “share the view that there needs to be consequences to North Korea for its defiance and for its threatening behaviors.”

“Our diplomats are in deep discussion in New York about how to tighten sanctions, how to respond to violations,” he said.

Asked about China’s cautious response to U.S. calls for stronger and more effective sanctions on Pyongyang and Beijing’s stress on the need for dialogue, Russel said:

“Yet another violation by the DPRK of the U.N. Security Council resolution, coming on the heels of its nuclear test, would be an unmistakable slap in the face to those who argue that you just need to show patience and dialogue with the North Koreans, but not sanctions.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said China had “unique influence over the North Korean regime” and added: “we … certainly are pleased to be able to work cooperatively and effectively with the Chinese to counter this threat.”

Earlier on Tuesday, China’s envoy for the North Korean nuclear issue arrived in the capital Pyongyang, the North’s KCNA news agency reported.

North Korea last launched a long-range rocket in December 2012, sending an object it described as a communications satellite into orbit.

Western and Asian experts have said that launch was part of an effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile.

North Korea has shown off two versions of a ballistic missile resembling a type that could reach the U.S. West Coast, but there is no evidence the missiles have been tested.

Pyongyang is also seen to be working to miniaturize a nuclear warhead to mount on a missile, but many experts say it is some time away from perfecting such technology.

North Korea said it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb last month but this was met with skepticism by U.S. and South Korean officials and nuclear experts. They said the blast was too small for it to have been a full-fledged hydrogen bomb.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul, Nobuhiro Kubo in Tokyo and David Brunnstrom, Ayesha Rascoe, Mohammad Zargham and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Grant McCool)