The satellite that North Korea launched into space three years ago circles the Earth every 95 minutes at an altitude of about 540km, its orbit decaying.
No signal has ever been detected from the crude-looking 100kg hunk of black metal that the North said was mounted with cameras to take images and transmit them back to Pyongyang.
The North is planning another satellite launch next month, re-igniting fears that it is really testing a system to deliver nuclear weapons. The secretive state is already under international sanctions for its nuclear and missile tests.
South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se said this month the North’s plan to launch a new satellite, which could be timed around the 70th anniversary of its ruling party on Oct. 10, would be a disguised missile test. The US has said such a launch could lead to more sanctions.
North Korea says its space program is peaceful and any attempt to stop it is an attack on its sovereignty.
While many observers were impressed that Pyongyang managed to put an object into orbit in 2012, German aerospace engineer Markus Schiller said in a 2013 analysis that the mission was a “low-performance” event and “not a game changer.”
“Nothing that has happened in past years has changed my assessment,” Schiller said last week, despite further short-range missile launches by Pyongyang using existing technology.
“Most of these activities still seem to be more motivated by political reasons than by engineering ones,” he said.
The North’s space agency said last week it is building a new satellite and preparing it for launch, possibly around Oct. 10, which suggests it has made advances in developing a ballistic missile.
South Korea’s Ministry of Defense said this week it had not detected any signs of preparations at the main launch site, about 50km from the Chinese border.
While a satellite launch utilizes technology also found in ballistic missiles, the thrust and speed of the launch vehicle, as well as the point of engine cut-off, are different.
Also, a missile must be designed for its warhead to withstand the stress of atmosphere re-entry, which is not the case when putting a satellite into space and leaving it there.
North Korea’s successful satellite launch in December 2012 came after a failed attempt earlier that year, an embarrassment for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
He had taken over from his father, who died in December 2011, and was trying to make a mark as the leader of a country that had defied years of international pressure and sanctions in pursuit of missile and nuclear weapons programs.
The satellite was propelled by North Korea’s Unha-3, a home- grown three-stage rocket based on 1950s Soviet Scud missile technology, with advanced fuel used in its final stage.
South Korean and US officials, as well as space experts, said that after the launch no signal was ever detected from the object.
The design and engineering that made the 30m-high Unha-3 suitable to launch a satellite make it a poor vehicle to deliver weapons, largely because launch preparations are difficult to hide due to the time it takes to assemble the rocket, stand it up and fuel it.
A new launch vehicle has yet to be spotted by satellite imagery, with its location still unknown.
“Preparations for the Unha-3, and whatever new space launch vehicle they might roll out, will be observable well in advance of a launch,” Babes-Bolyai University visiting fellow Daniel Pinkston said.
“So it is not a system that can be used for any military objective,” said Pinkston, who has studied the North’s political and weapons strategy.
Still, the North’s pursuit of long-range rocket technology should be taken seriously because of potential capabilities it might acquire in the future, Pinkston added.
“It should be clear how important these capabilities are to the leadership because they are expensive and difficult to acquire,” he said.
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