North Korea Unable to Announce Satellite Relaunch [Yang Nakgyu's Defence Club]

No Mention of Relaunch Due to Technical Defects
Russian Technical Consultation Needed... Independent Relaunch Difficulties

North Korea has not announced any plans for additional military reconnaissance satellite launches. It is speculated that they have either not accurately identified the technical defects that caused the satellite launch vehicle failure or have refrained from announcing a re-launch due to concerns about Russia.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the 27th at around 10:44 PM, the military reconnaissance satellite No. 2 launch vehicle fired from the West Sea Satellite Launch Site in Dongchang-ri, Pyonganbuk-do, exploded, and North Korea acknowledged the launch failure through a report by the Korean Central News Agency. North Korea stated that it would "also review other possible causes."

They did not mention the timing of a re-launch. This differs from past instances where they announced plans to retry immediately after a failed launch. When North Korea first failed to launch the military reconnaissance satellite No. 1 on May 31 last year, they stated, "After conducting various tests, we will carry out a second launch as soon as possible." Furthermore, after the second launch failed on August 24, they explicitly declared their intention to re-launch by specifying, "We will carry out the third reconnaissance satellite launch in October."

North Korea applied a new engine using liquid oxygen as the oxidizer and kerosene (jet fuel) as the fuel for this reconnaissance satellite launch vehicle, and pointed to reliability issues with this engine as the cause of the launch failure. Since it may take a relatively long time to resolve the technical problems arising from the introduction of this new fuel system, it may have been difficult for North Korea to readily declare a re-launch.

Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said, "It is likely to take considerable time to secure stability and improve the technology, and it is very difficult for North Korea to predict this."

Politically, the "Russia variable" is being mentioned. There are many observations that North Korea received technical support from Russia during the process of introducing the liquid oxygen-kerosene fuel system. In this case, since consultation with Russia would be necessary to resolve the issues, it is believed that North Korea found it difficult to independently announce a re-launch schedule. Additionally, the rumored visit of President Vladimir Putin to North Korea, which is currently under discussion, may also be a factor. There are also forecasts that the failure of this launch could disrupt North Korea’s plan, declared at the end of last year’s Workers' Party plenary meeting, to launch three additional reconnaissance satellites within this year.

Senior researcher Hong said, "It may take at least 3 to 6 months to reinforce the technology to resolve the instability of the first-stage engine," adding, "Therefore, it seems possible to launch only one or two satellites at most this year."