North Korea said Thursday that its second attempt to launch a spy satellite failed again but vowed to make another attempt in October, demonstrating willingness to endure flops to acquire a key military asset coveted by leader Kim Jong Un.
The failed launch prompted neighboring Japan to issue brief a “J-alert” ordering some residents to evacuate to safe places as the North Korean rocket flew over its southernmost islands of Okinawa to the Pacific Ocean. The North’s space agency said it used the new-type carrier rocket Chollima-1 to put the reconnaissance satellite Malligyong-1 into orbit. It said the flights of the rocket’s first and second stages were normal, but the launch eventually failed due to an error in the emergency blasting system during the third-stage flight, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
The National Aerospace Development Administration said it would make a third launch attempt in October after studying what went wrong with Thursday’s launch. The agency added that “the cause of the relevant accident is not a big issue in terms of the reliability of cascade engines and the system.” “Kim may have licked his wounds after this second failure, but he’s already dusting himself off and moving on,” said Soo Kim, an expert with Virginia-based consultancy LMI and a former CIA analyst. “In previous cases where the North has failed a weapons demonstration, we never saw them give up but show greater perseverance in view of their longer-term ambitions.” Earlier on Thursday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that it detected the rocket flying above international waters off the Korean Peninsula’s west coast after its liftoff at the North’s northwestern Tongchang-ri area at 3:50 a.m. The site is where North Korea’s main space launch center is located.
