North Korea : You suck at rocket science!

(photo illustration)

TOKYO (Reuters) - South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee said on Sunday that Seoul had judged that North Korea had failed to put its satellite launched earlier in the day into orbit, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported.

"Based on our judgment made so far, all first, second and third (stage) rockets fell into the ocean, and thus nothing has been put into orbit," Kyodo quoted Lee as telling a parliamentary session in Seoul.

The first stage of the long range rocket fell into the Sea of Japan and the second stage traveled over Northern Japan, dropping in the Pacific Ocean. Pyongyang had notified that the 'Satellite' rocket launch would take place between April 4 and 8.

UPDATE:
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea and the U.S. military say there's no North Korean satellite orbiting the earth as claimed by Pyongyang.

South Korea's defense minister says all three sections of the North Korean rocket fell into the sea after launch this morning.

And a statement from the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Northern Command says "no object entered orbit."

But North Korean state-run media says the satellite was transmitting data and patriotic odes to leader Kim Jong Il and founder Kim Il Sung.

The Korean Central News Agency says the satellite reached outer space in just over nine minutes.

North Korea says the launch was a peaceful bid to develop its space program.

But the U.S., South Korea, Japan and others suspect the launch was a guise for testing the regime's long-range missile technology.


UPDATE: SEOUL, April 5 (UPI) -- North Korea failed to put a rocket into orbit Sunday, contrary to its earlier claim of a successful launch, U.S. and South Korean officials said.

The North Korean payload fell into the Pacific Ocean, along with the second-stage rocket, the Yonhap news agency quoted an anonymous South Korean government official as saying.

The U.S. Northern Command Web site described the launched rocket as "not a threat" to its territory.

The last two stages of the rocket fell into the Pacific Ocean along with the payload and the first stage fell into the East Sea, the Northern Command site claimed.

"No object entered orbit and no debris fell on Japan," the Web site said.

The rocket was launched despite warnings from North Korea's neighbors and the United States, a South Korean official said.

The U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting Sunday to consider possible action against North Korea.

Editors note: No doubt, Japanese and U.S. Military will be mounting a search to find the payload and other stages of the N. Korean rocket.

Propaganda video released by North Korea in 1998 claiming their first successful orbiting of communications satellite which also did not make orbit. Not only do they suck at rocket science but they lie too! Look for anew bogus video claiming the recent launch was a success as well.

False Alarm Sounded Saturday in Japan over North Korean Missile Launch

By Steve Herman
Tokyo VOA
04 April 2009

A false alarm was sounded in Japan Saturday when the government announced North Korea had carried out an expected rocket launch. Japan quickly rescinded the announcement but not before the report had been widely disseminated both in the country and internationally.

A jittery Japan went on high alert after Pyongyang announced that an anticipated launch from North Korea was imminent.

But the Japanese government's emergency network, headquartered at the Prime Minister's office, acted prematurely. It announced at 12:16 p.m. local time Saturday North Korea had fired the rocket. The report was immediately aired on national broadcast networks and local authorities activated their emergency responses in areas where it was feared debris from stages of the missile could fall.

International news agencies also disseminated the announcement.

Five minutes later an embarrassed Japanese government retracted the alert.

At a regional government emergency center in Niigata, officials repeatedly utter "mistake, mistake" to spread the word.

Later in the day, Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada apologized.

Hamada says he wants to make a heartfelt apology to the people of Japan for causing tremendous trouble to them. The defense minister says it is the fault of the Defense Ministry and Self Defense Forces due to a mistake in the transmission of information.

Government officials pinpointed the error as originating at an Air Self-Defense Force radar station, in Chiba Prefecture, which had detected a "flying object" over the Sea of Japan.

Japanese media report, however, there was no indication of a launch from a U.S. early warning satellite system, which is to be used by Japan to verify such an event.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura, the top government spokesman, also faced reporters to explain what happened.

Kawamura says he also wants to apologize for the confusion caused by the government's mistaken announcement of a missile launch. He adds that all alert systems remain in place for the anticipated launch - now not expected to occur before Sunday - and the government will strive to be accurate with further announcements.

North Korea, on Saturday, through its official media, announced all preparations had been completed at the launch site in Musudan-ri, in the north-eastern part of the country.

A television news announcer in Pyongyang says North Korea's launch of what it terms an experimental communications satellite would be sent into space "soon."

North Korea previously informed international aviation and shipping agencies that the launch would take place between April 4 and the 8.


DigitalGlobe satellite image thought to show missile launch pad at Musudan-ni, northeast coastal region of North Korea, 27 Mar 2009
The impending launch has caused anxiety for Japan, which along with the United States and South Korea, have called on North Korea not to proceed. Those governments say such a launch - which they believe will be a ballistic missile test - would violate a United Nations Security Council resolution.

The 2006 U.N. action demanded Pyongyang drop all development related to ballistic missiles.

In an unprecedented defensive posture, Japan has deployed Aegis-class destroyers to its northern coast and repositioned Patriot missile batteries in case it needs to shoot down any debris that threatens Japan. Some of the Patriot PAC-3 land-to-air missile systems have been placed in and around Tokyo, the capital. Others are in two northern prefectures expected to be below the flight path of the North Korean missile.

Japan says the launch endangers its security but has backed away from earlier threats to try to shoot down the missile. North Korea said any such action by Japan would mean war.

North Korea Rocket Launch on Track

By CHOE SANG-HUN
Published: April 3, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea — Determined to demonstrate its latest missile technology both to its adversaries and perhaps to potential buyers in the Middle East, North Korea pressed ahead with final preparations on Friday to launch a multistage rocket.

The countdown could begin as early as Saturday morning, and North Korea says its rocket will blast off sometime between then and Wednesday. It warned aircraft to stay clear of its easterly trajectory over northern Japan, toward the Pacific.

Weather forecasts say it will be cloudy with no strong winds over the Musudan-ri launching site on North Korea’s coast, meaning the North could launch the rocket anytime during the period.

“I think it’s almost certain North Korea will fire the missile,” President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea said Friday in London, where he was attending the Group of 20 summit meeting, Reuters reported. Mr. Lee vowed a “strong and stern response.”

North Korea says it is launching an experimental communications satellite. But Washington and its allies see the test as a provocative demonstration of ballistic missile technology and an attempt to secure a place on President Obama’s crowded foreign policy agenda.

Neighboring governments were on heightened alert on Friday, and had navy ships with missile-tracking radar deployed in waters near North Korea. For its part, the North reportedly moved jet fighters closer to the launching site and threatened to counterattack if any government tried to stop it.

“It’s too early to say for sure whether the object the North is launching is a satellite or a missile,” said Lee Jong-joo, a government spokeswoman in Seoul. “But our principled position is that whether this is a missile or something else, it threatens peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”

Unable to persuade the North to cancel its plan, Washington, Tokyo and Seoul focused on how to forge a unified front with China and Russia in penalizing the North, while also drawing it back to six-nation talks on ending its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea is banned from ballistic missile tests under two United Nations Security Council resolutions, which were adopted in 2006 after it launched a ballistic missile and conducted its first nuclear test.

But if North Korea puts a satellite into orbit — as it claims it wants to do, and as a growing number of analysts believe it will try to do — then any attempt to introduce new sanctions in the Security Council will be hobbled by disputes over whether the North violated the 2006 resolutions, analysts said.

In Strasbourg, France, Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said the launching would be a violation of Security Council resolutions, and said “preparations” were being made if it went ahead, Reuters reported. He did not provide details in comments to reporters during a trip to Europe by Mr. Obama.

Prime Minister Taro Aso of Japan told China’s president, Hu Jintao, during the Group of 20 summit meeting that if the launching went ahead, there should be a new United Nations resolution, the Yomiuri newspaper reported. Mr. Hu showed “some understanding” but did not made a clear commitment, the newspaper said.

For the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, who reportedly suffered a stroke in August, a successful launching would demonstrate his country’s mastery of key missile technologies.

Mr. Kim is also using the tensions he has stirred up to rally his hungry people amid dwindling foreign aid, and to demonstrate to the outside world that he is still in charge, analysts said. In a sales pitch for his missiles, Mr. Kim may also have invited arms dealers from the Middle East to the launching site, they said.

“Evidence suggests that North Korea has had extensive dealings with Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Yemen and Libya on ballistic missiles and possibly even nuclear warheads,” said a recent report from the Congressional Research Service in Washington.

Experts believe that the rocket North Korea is about to launch is derived from its Taepodong-2 missile, which the North began developing in the 1990s. But they are not sure about its potential or the North’s ability to arm missiles with nuclear warheads.

The Congressional Research Service report said some analysts believed that the Taepodong-2 missile could deliver a 700 to 1,000 kilogram payload more than 4,000 miles, within range of the Alaskan coast, as well as all American military targets in Japan and Guam.

The North Korean rocket would weigh about 80 tons and could place a payload of 100 kilograms, or 220 pounds, into orbit at about 250 miles, David Wright, co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security Program, wrote recently , citing some inconclusive assumptions. When used as a missile, the same rocket could carry a 500-kilogram payload about 5,600 miles, far enough to reach San Francisco.

But “since it likely would be difficult for North Korea to build a first-generation warhead and heat shield with a mass of 500 kilograms, this wouldn’t represent a true intercontinental nuclear capability,” Mr. Wright wrote.

The North’s first test of the Taepodong-2 missile failed in 2006 when it blew apart 40 seconds after launching.