Activity at North's satellite launch facility resumes

Activity at North Korea's Sohae satellite launching pad area in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province, has resumed after nearly a half-year hiatus, according to latest satellite imagery.

North Korea tests a ″high-thrust solid-fuel″ rocket at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province on Dec. 15, 2022, in a photo released by its official Korean Central News Agency. [YONHAP]

Activity at North Korea's Sohae satellite launching pad area in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province, has resumed after nearly a half-year hiatus, according to latest satellite imagery.

Materials on the launch pad have been removed and a new, taller tower crane has been assembled next to the gantry tower within the past two weeks, according to recent commercial satellite imagery released by Washington-based Pyongyang analysis website 38 North Sunday.

It noted that the efforts are likely linked with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's "modernization goals to boost space launch capabilities" as was announced in March 2022 and in support of a new generation of larger satellite launch vehicles.

The website noted that work on the Sohae launch pad restarted within the past two weeks and is "proceeding rapidly," and that imagery from Friday indicates most of the materials on the launch area, previous undisturbed, "have recently been used or removed." It noted that a new 90-meter-high (295 foot) tower crane has been built next to the existing 65-meter gantry tower. This implies the height of the gantry tower could be increased.

It called the spurt of activity since April 30 "remarkable" but noted there remains work to be done to the launch pad and to rebuild the fuel and oxidizer bunkers before a satellite launch can be undertaken from this location.

Sohae Satellite Launching Station is a rocket launching site in Cholsan County, near the western coast and northern border with China, and North Korea's only known permanent operational test ground for major weapons systems such as long-range rockets that can be converted into intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

In March 2017, North Korea tested a new high-thrust rocket engine at the Tongchang-ri Rocket Launch Station which can be used for Hwasong-15 and Hwasong-17 ICBMs.

North Korea tested its "high-thrust solid-fuel" rocket engine on Dec. 15, 2022, from the Sohae site, which it claimed was the first of its kind.

This comes as diplomatic sources indicate that the North Korean military may have begun preparations to launch a rocket capable of carrying a spy satellite. While previous missile and rocket tests have demonstrated that North Korea can send satellites into space, experts continue to question whether its spy cameras are sophisticated enough to use for military reconnaissance.

On Monday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry accused the United States of backing Japan's move to seek "military collusion" with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in response to plans for Japan to open a NATO liaison office, the first of its kind, in Asia.

"It is well known that Japan has long sought military collusion with NATO and is more zealously clinging to it with the Ukrainian incident as an occasion," wrote Kim Sol-hwa, a researcher at the North Korean Foreign Ministry's Institute for Japan Studies, in an English-language article released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

The article accused the United States of "trying to hold its hegemonic position in the Asia-Pacific region" by forming some sort of "Asian-version NATO."

Kim said it was the "sinister intention of the U.S. to lay huge siege to China and Russia" through gaining the support of South Korea, Japan and other allies to form "typical confrontational blocs for exclusive security cooperation" and linking them with NATO. Kim referred to U.S.-led groups related to the Indo-Pacific region including the Quad, or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the United States, and Aukus, a trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Kim called it an "open secret" that the United States, which established NATO as a military alliance after World War II, "has worked overtly and covertly to create such a military bloc in the Asia-Pacific region."

The article described that Japan's "unprecedented" military ties with NATO "has recently aroused great concern and vigilance of the international community."

Kim added that countries in the region have seen through "Japan's intention to rid itself of the 'shackles' of the U.S. through military nexus with NATO and free itself from the bondage of the 'Pacifist Constitution,'" referring to Japan's postwar peace constitution which renounces war.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]