Tag: rockets

If anyone cares at this point, it looks like North Korea has continued with its weapons testing:

North Korea fired a short-range projectile from an area near its eastern coast on Tuesday, South Korean officials said, in what appears to be another weapons test seen as a response to ongoing military drills between Washington and Seoul.

The projectile was fired near the North Korean port city of Wonsan and flew about 200 kilometers (125 miles) before crashing into land northeast of the launch site, South Korean military officials said.

It was unclear whether the projectile was a ballistic missile or an artillery shell, said a Joint Chiefs of Staff official who didn’t want to be identified, citing office rules. It was too early to tell whether North Korea used a land target to test the accuracy and range of its weapons or experienced problems after planning a launch into the sea, said an official from Seoul’s Defense Ministry, who also didn’t want to be named because of department rules.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

This is not good if true because it means that North Korea could fire their long range rockets without fueling.  Fueling of rockets if detected gives the US and the ROK militaries forewarning of a possible attack which solid fuel rockets prevents:

Leader Kim Jong-un claimed North Korea successfully tested a solid-fuel rocket engine that boosts the power of its ballistic missiles, state media reported Thursday, in his latest boast of military technology breakthroughs following United Nations sanctions.

The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Kim led a test of solid-fuel rocket engines, stressing that the result of the test was in line with previous estimations.

“He noted with great pleasure that the successful test provided a guarantee for attaining the high goals of national defense science and technology without fail this year when the Seventh Congress of the Worker’s Party of Korea [meets],” the KCNA said, “and helped boost the power of ballistic rockets capable of mercilessly striking hostile forces.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

If anyone should be apologizing it is the Russians who continue to support the Kim regime.  As far as the issue at hand I would think the Russians probably covered their tracks really well in regards to any rocket components transferred to the North Koreans:

Russia demanded an apology from South Korea on Wednesday for raising suspicions that key components of North Korea’s recently tested rocket are from Russia.

Mikhail Ulyanov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s nonproliferation and arms control department, said in a news conference that South Korea should present evidence backing up the suspicions or retract them and apologize.

“This statement is irresponsible and unprofessional. One cannot come forward with such accusations without having clear evidence,” the official said.

After the North’s missile launch on Sunday, officials of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said in a closed-door emergency briefing to the parliamentary intelligence committee that key components of the missile appear to have come from Russia, according to lawmakers.  [Yonhap]

A documentary aired on Dec. 3, 2015, by the North’s Korean Central Broadcast TV shows Kim Rak-gyom (circled), commander of strategic forces, bearing a shoulder insignia with four stars, indicating he has been promoted to general. The strategic forces, upgraded at the end of 2013 from the strategic rocket forces, commands and controls missile units. Kim was promoted to colonel general, equivalent to lieutenant general, in February last year, and his fast rise suggests he was rewarded for his achievements in rocket development. (Yonhap)

It looks like the North Koreans will probably start another provocation cycle whenever this rocket launch site upgrade is complete:

Satellite imagery shows significant new construction at North Korea’s main rocket launch site in a sign of leader Kim Jong Un’s determination to pursue a space program despite international censure, a U.S. research institute said Thursday.

North Korea is barred under U.N. Security Council resolutions from launching rockets as that technology can also be used to launch ballistic missiles. Kim, however, declared this month that its space program “can never be abandoned.”

North Korea has been upgrading the Sohae launch site on its west coast since mid-2013 after it blasted its first rocket into space in December 2012. It says the space program is peaceful.

The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies says the North completed an expansion of its launch tower late last year to take larger rockets. Commercial satellite imagery shows that since then, the North has been working on a support building and what appears to be a moveable platform to allow an assembled rocket to be shifted on rails to the launch pad. The institute likens it to facilities in China but says there’s no publicly available evidence to suggest Beijing is providing help.

The most recent image is from May 16.

“The Sohae facility upgrade program represents a significant investment of financial, material and personnel resources and is another indicator, along with its public statements, that North Korea is determined to pursue its space program,” read the analysis provided to The Associated Press ahead of publication on the institute’s website, 38 North.

Satellite imagery analyst Tim Brown writes that the expansion of the launch tower suggests the North wants to field a larger space launch vehicle, which may also contribute to its development of long-range ballistic missiles.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but considering all the construction going on the North Koreans are clearly having a lot of money coming in despite financial sanctions.

According to this report there has been no signs of an impending launch yet:

South Korea sees no signs of North Korea preparing to fire a long-range rocket, the Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday, despite reports that the North plans to test-launch a rocket carrying a satellite.

Citing “sources in a number of governments,” Japan’s Kyodo News Agency reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered its National Aerospace Development Administration earlier this year to prepare to test-launch a rocket carrying a satellite in October to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the nation.

The U.S., Japan and South Korea suspect the project will “effectively be a test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile” that the North is allegedly developing, according to the report.

“South Korean and U.S. authorities are closely monitoring the North Korean movements,” Defense Ministry vice spokesman Nah Seung-yong told a regular briefing. “But we’ve yet to confirm any specific signs or movements of its actual firing of missiles.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

People across a wide swath of the West, from Arizona to Canada, looked up at the sky late Monday to see a cluster of weird lights followed by an orange tail streaking across the night.

The lights were not a meteor, but a Chinese rocket booster that broke apart, said Maj. Martin O’Donnell, a spokesman for U.S. Strategic Command.

There were no reports of damage or injuries, O’Donnell said, pointing to statistics showing there is a 1 in a trillion chance of being hit by space debris.

Canadian photographer Neil Zeller was on his way home from shooting the Northern Lights when he saw the cluster of fireballs in a rural area outside of Calgary about 11 p.m. local time.

“I’d never seen anything like it,” he said. He captured several shots of an orange streak slashed above dark trees. (AP)

A rocket destined for the International Space Station exploded in a huge fireball Tuesday night. http://t.co/IPUMJiiKJU

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) October 29, 2014

With the Asian Games soon to be over is this a sign that the North Koreans plan to begin another provocation cycle in the coming months based on a rocket launch at this upgraded launch facility?:

New satellite imagery suggests North Korea has completed the upgrade of a launch site in its northwest that will allow it to launch much bigger rockets than the long-range projectile it fired from the base two years ago.

In a report featuring satellite photos of North Korea’s Sohae launch site, about 50 miles northwest of Pyongyang, 38 North, the website of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, said construction appeared to have ended after a yearlong revamp.

“Should a decision be made soon to do so in Pyongyang—and we have no evidence that one has—a rocket could be launched by the end of 2014,” the report said.

North Korea in December 2012 launched a long-range rocket called Unha-3 from the site that put a satellite into space. Other countries, including the U.S. and its Asian allies, viewed the launch as a test of long-range missile technology.  [Wall Street Journal]

You can read more at the link.

ALERT: North Korea test-fires 4 short-range rockets, says Yonhap http://t.co/KVGyDrPaev

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) July 30, 2014