This could be a really good post with a lot of depth, but I am busy. However, Josh’s productivity is making me feel guilty enough to post something brief.

First, though, a thank-you to Nathan Hodge who was kind enough to “mention me”:http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/04/north-korea-fue.html#more a little while back. As he noted, I took issue with one phrase in his original post: “once you have mastered satellite launch, you’ve pretty much figured out how to build an ICBM.”

I told him that mastering a satellite launch

bq. helps with the “launch” part, but not the “re-enter the atmosphere and destroy the desired target” part.

This is simply because SLVs aren’t designed to do the “blow up a lot of shit” thing that ICBMs tend to be good for. If you can build such things, that is. It’s not easy – a fact that “this piece in Yonhap”:http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2009/04/05/2/0301000000AEN20090405005400315F.HTML discussed a few weeks ago.

I would also commend “this OTA report.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/file_download/7

Happy reading. And don’t even think about any unconscious motives behind your interest in missiles…

Josh adds: I’m not sure I’d call it “productivity,” exactly. And speaking for myself, at least, I’m still trying not to think too hard about my “interest in SBX”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1999/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-sbx.

If you believe what’s been written about the “Musudan IRBM”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1884/irbm, then the NKs have a big leg up on the re-entry vehicle problem already.

If you only read one thing about North Korea this week, Dan Sneider’s “op-ed”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/09/opinion/09iht-edsneider.html in the _IHT_ would be a pretty gosh darn good choice.

Enjoy. I’m signing off for awhile now.

Don’t place any big bets just yet, but it seems increasingly likely that “there never was”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1970/kwangmyongsong-epic-fail-or-epic-bs a Kwangmyongsong-2.

If you haven’t been paying attention, check out “Geoff”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2245/dprk-ground-truth “Forden’s”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2244/dprk-systemic-vs-technological-failures “analysis”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2247/dprk-unha-2-trajectory-constrained. Looks kinda like an IRBM test, and a successful one, at that.

Update: It might be more accurate to say “a partly successful ICBM test.” It certainly “looks like”:http://tinyurl.com/unha2 a three-stage rocket, no?

At least “some people”:http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0407/p06s07-woap.html in South Korea think so. But just try to prove it…

So why might North Korea undertake such a ruse? Well, under UNSCR 1718, North Korea cannot legally test a ballistic missile. But under the “Outer Space Treaty”:http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/ost/text/space1.htm, they can launch a satellite:

bq. Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be free for exploration and use by all States without discrimination of any kind, on a basis of equality and in accordance with international law, and there shall be free access to all areas of celestial bodies.

Hey, did anyone notice that North Korea “acceded”:http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/oosatdb/showTreatySignatures.do to the Outer Space Treaty and the Registration Convention on March 10, 2009?

How about that?

Update: “More from Forden”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2249/dprk-icbm-or-space-launch-vehicle.

North Korean satellite launch efforts are now “0 for 2”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1968/unha-2td-2-launch-epic-fail — not that you’d know it from their (terrestrial) broadcasts. You’ve got to wonder if there was ever a Kwangmyongsong-1 or Kwangmyongsong-2 in the first place.

(Those paying attention in August 1998 may recall that K-1 and the third stage that was supposed to boost it into orbit came as a surprise to the outside world.)

This “purported picture of K-1”:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipehttp://www.totalwonkerr.net/textpattern/index.phpdia/en/3/3d/Kwangmyongsong.jpg sure looks awfully like China’s “Dongfanghong-1”:http://knows.jongo.com/UserFiles/Image/dongfanghong1.jpg, doesn’t it? Maybe it was a close copy. Or maybe it was just a mockup, based on some North Korean engineer’s (or propagandist’s) idea of what a first satellite should look like.

If the K-1 and K-2 were wholly fictitious, we might actually be _underestimating_ the reliability of NK missiles.

[Update: The emerging consensus says “fail”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/world/asia/06korea.html.]

Following up on “Josh’s post,”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1966/unha-2-an-overlooked-angle it looks like the NK Unha-2/TD-2 launch failed.

NORTHCOM has “this”:http://www.northcom.mil/News/2009/040509.html announcement:

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. — North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command officials acknowledged today that North Korea launched a Taepo Dong 2 missile at 10:30 p.m. EDT Saturday which passed over the Sea of Japan/East Sea and the nation of Japan.

*Stage one of the missile fell into the Sea of Japan/East Sea. The remaining stages along with the payload itself landed in the Pacific Ocean.*

*No object entered orbit* and no debris fell on Japan.

NORAD and USNORTHCOM assessed the space launch vehicle as not a threat to North America or Hawaii and took no action in response to this launch.

This is all of the information that will be provided by NORAD and USNORTHCOM pertaining to the launch.

FWIW, this launch was more successful than the 2006 TD-2 launch, in which the missile blew up ~42 seconds into flight.

*Update:*

Retired Lt. Gen. Henry Obering “argues that”:http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/04/05/north.korea.rocket/index.html the rocket “was able to go through the staging event,” signaling success in the rocket reaching long-range capability.

Maybe. I interpreted the NORTHCOM annoucement as saying that the last two stages hadn’t separated, though perhaps I was mistaken.

Up, up, and away: North Korea has launched its “space rocket”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1956/if-it-quacks-like-a-satellite. For real, “this time”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1963/japan-on-n-korean-launch-our-bad. The “instant report”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/world/asia/05korea.html of the _NY Times_ — most of which was presumably written beforehand — includes this striking tidbit.

While many analysts have looked at the launching through a military lens, some say another perspective involves political rivalries on the Korean peninsula. For years, South Korea has been gearing up to fire a satellite into orbit and join the space club. Its spaceport of Oinarodo is nearly ready, but a launching scheduled for this month was delayed, giving North Korea an opening.

“They’re racing to beat the South Koreans,” said Tim Brown, a senior fellow at “GlobalSecurity.org”:http://globalsecurity.org/, a private group in Alexandria, Va.

That’s probably just gravy, but regardless, it’s an in-your-face moment for the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, all at once.

“Strong work:”:http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE53314H20090404

Japan’s government apologized on Saturday for mistakenly announcing that North Korea had launched a rocket, as the nation’s military remained on alert for the expected move by Tokyo’s secretive communist neighbor.

_snip_

“We caused a great deal of trouble to the Japanese people. This was a mistake in the transmission of information by the Defense Ministry and the Self-Defense Forces,” Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada told reporters, using the formal name for Japan’s military. “I want to apologize to the people from my heart.”

Kyodo has “quite a bit”:http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=431695 more:

bq. The government released information that ”North Korea appears to have launched a projectile” at 12:16 p.m. via its e-mail-based Em-Net emergency information system, but retracted it five minutes later, saying it was a ”detection failure.”

By way of explanation, mistakes were made.

Here’s an excerpt:

According to the Defense Ministry, the ground-based FPS-5 radar at the ministry’s Iioka research and development site in Asahi, Chiba Prefecture, picked up a trace over the Sea of Japan on the radar screen.

The information was immediately conveyed to the ASDF’s Air Defense Command in the suburbs of Tokyo, but *the person who received it mistook the information for satellite early warning information provided by the U.S. military.*

The satellite early warning information is based on data sent by the U.S. Air Force’s Defense Support Program satellite orbiting the Earth. Equipped with an infrared telescope, it is normally the quickest means to detect ballistic missile launches.

The *erroneous information then got passed onto the SDF’s Central Command Post at the Defense Ministry headquarters, from which it was conveyed to the crisis management center at the prime minister’s office,* according to the ministry.

The prime minister’s office sent an emergency e-mail message to local governments across the country and media organizations based on the false information.

One minute *after the Central Command Post received the launch information, it was notified that the trace had disappeared from the radar screen and that no satellite early warning information had actually been received,* the ministry said.

”They *should have confirmed on computer terminals that satellite early warning information had been received. The mistake could have been avoided if they had done so,”* a ministry official said.

The official said he does not know why the airman at the Air Defense Command mixed up the radar and satellite early warning information.

Read the “whole thing.”:http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=431695

*Update:*

Geoff Forden has “more”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2241/dprk-blip-on-a-screen on the J/FPS-5 radar which reportedly “saw” the launch.