The north Koreans are doing a nice job of playing the international community. They had everyone thinking they had technical difficulties, extended the launch window, and then launched. It will be interesting to see the data and if it was successful in putting a satellite in space. If they are successful then they potential have an intercontinental ballistic missile capability that can potential carry a nuclear warhead (though there is still more work to do on that capability)
V/R
Dave
Dave
December 11, 2012
North Koreans Launch Rocket in Defiant Act
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea defied the likelihood of more sanctions by the United Nations Security Council to launch a rocket on Wednesday, demonstrating that the government of its new leader, Kim Jong-un, was pressing ahead to master the technology needed to deliver a nuclear warhead on intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The Unha-3, or Galaxy-3, rocket blasted off from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Tongchang-ri on North Korea’s western coast near China on Wednesday morning, a spokesman for South Korea’s Defense Ministry said.
“That’s all we can confirm right now,” the spokesman said, speaking on the condition of anonymity until his government made an official announcement.
It was not immediately known whether the rocket had succeeded in fulfilling North Korea’s stated goal of putting a satellite into orbit.
North Korea has said its three-stage rocket would carry an earth-observation satellite named Kwangmyongsong-3, or Shining Star-3, and that it was exercising its right to peaceful activity in space.
But Washington and its allies have said they think that North Korea’s rocket program has less to do with putting a satellite into orbit than with developing a delivery vehicle for a nuclear warhead and trying to turn the country into a more urgent threat that Washington must deal with by offering diplomatic and economic concessions.
While North Korea may still have other technological thresholds to cross, like the miniaturizing of its nuclear weapons, a successful launching of a satellite into orbit would suggest that the country had overcome a major hurdle in its efforts to demonstrate its potential of mating its growing nuclear weapons program with intercontinental ballistic missile capability.
A failure would be an embarrassment for the young Mr. Kim, who has been struggling to establish himself a new North Korean leader hailed at home and feared abroad. Whether the launching was successful or not, Mr. Kim, by attempting a second rocket launching in the first year of his rule despite international condemnations, was dashing hopes among some analysts that he might soften North Korea’s confrontational stance. Instead, he was seen as intent on bolstering his father’s main legacy of nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs to justify his own hereditary rule.
Only Monday, the Korean government told the rest of the world that it had found a technical problem with its rocket and needed until Dec. 29 to fix it and carry out the launch. Outside analysts have been speculating what might be going on behind the dark cover North Korean engineers had put up around the launching pad to prevent United States spy satellites from watching.
“A successful test would raise as a top-line national security issue for the Obama administration the specter of a direct North Korean threat to the U.S. homeland,” Victor D. Cha and Ellen Kim wrote in a recent analysis posted on the Web site of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Mr. Kim hardly needed another failure. The North’s first rocket launched since he took over after the death of his father a year ago broke apart shortly after blastoff in April, forcing his government to admit to the failure in front of the foreign journalists it had invited to watch the test. This time, North Korea did not invite foreign journalists. Nor did the government announce the launching plan to its domestic audience.
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