North says second spy satellite launch ended in failure

North Korea said its second attempt to launch a spy satellite from the Sohae satellite launching station in Cholsan County, North Pyongan Province, ended in failure Thursday. It vowed to make another launch in October.

People at Seoul Station in central Seoul Thursday watch news about North Korea’s second attempt to launch a spy satellite from the Sohae satellite launching station in Cholsan County, North Pyongan Province, earlier that morning, which ultimately ended in failure. [YONHAP]

North Korea said its second attempt to launch a spy satellite from the Sohae satellite launching station in Cholsan County, North Pyongan Province, ended in failure Thursday.

It vowed to make another launch in October.

Early Thursday, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launch of North Korea's space launch vehicle from the Tongchang-ri area in North Pyongan Province at around 3:50 a.m. and that the projectile flew over international waters west of Ieodo Ocean Research Station south of Jeju Island.

Pyongyang later confirmed it launched a reconnaissance satellite, the Malligyong-1, mounted on a "new-type" Chollima-1 rocket Thursday at dawn, according to an English-language report of its official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The KCNA claimed that the launch conducted by the National Aerospace Development Administration, its state-run space agency, "failed due to an error in the emergency blasting system during the third-stage flight."

The report added that the cause of the accident was "not a big problem" in terms of the "reliability of cascade engines and the system." It said the space agency will "make clear in a short span of time" the reason why the "emergency blasting system" malfunctioned.

North Korea said it plans to conduct a third reconnaissance satellite launch in October "after thoroughly probing the reason and taking measures" following its second failed launch.

On Tuesday, North Korea notified Japan's coast guard of its intention to launch a satellite between Aug. 24 and 31 after a botched launch in May.

Pyongyang designated three maritime danger zones that could be affected by the planned satellite launch: around the Yellow Sea, southwest of North Korea, in the East China Sea and a third area east of the Philippine island of Luzon.

The JCS said in a statement Thursday that the South Korean military is maintaining a "full readiness posture" in close cooperation with the United States following the latest satellite launch.

Later in the day, the JCS also confirmed that North Korea's alleged space rocket launch ended in "failure."

A JCS official told reporters that the North's rocket traveled 33 kilometers (20 miles) west of South Korea's Baengnyeong Island, near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas in the Yellow Sea. The military did not request an alert to be sent out by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety because it did not affect the safety of the Korean people.

The official said that the military assessed that parts of the rocket had fallen into areas similar to what North Korea mentioned as danger zones prior to the launch.

The South Korean military said it deployed naval ships and aircraft to conduct a search operation to salvage fallen wreckage of the rocket.

The JCS also assessed North Korea's latest satellite launch was also made at a "new launch site" rather than the existing one at the Sohae satellite launching station in Tongchang-ri. The new launch site is said to be located nearside about 3 kilometers away from the existing launch site.

On May 31, a North Korean rocket carrying a spy satellite crashed into the Yellow Sea shortly after liftoff due to engine failure. North Korea made a rare acknowledgment of failure, saying that the launch of its new Chollima-1 satellite launch rocket had crashed because of instability in the engine and fuel system, vowing that a second attempt would be made "soon."

The South Korean military immediately conducted a search and salvage operation after this botched launch and recovered a presumed part of the rocket's second stage on June 15. South Korean and U.S. experts later concluded that the retrieved wreckage had "no military utility."

North Korea called the May 31 botched launch the "most serious" shortcoming in the first half of this year in a plenary meeting of its ruling Worker's Party's Central Committee attended by leader Kim Jong-un, noting officials who were responsible for the launch were "bitterly" criticized.

The latest launch came 85 days after the first failed attempt.

It came amid Seoul and Washington's annual joint military exercise, the Ulchi Freedom Shield, which began Monday and will run to the end of this month.

President Yoon Suk Yeol ordered the National Security Council (NSC), which convened a meeting Thursday morning, to share details of its analysis of North Korea's failed satellite launch with the United States and Japan and to prepare for possible additional provocations by the North, the presidential office said.

The NSC, led by National Security Adviser Cho Tae-yong, "strongly condemned the launch as a grave violation of the [United Nations] Security Council resolutions banning any launches by North Korea using ballistic missile technology."

The White House also immediately released a statement saying the United States "strongly condemns" North Korea's latest attempt to launch a spy satellite, which despite its failure "raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region and beyond."

U.S. President Joe Biden and his national security team are "assessing the situation in close coordination with our allies and partners," Adrienne Watson, spokesperson of the White House National Security Council, said in the statement.

"This space launch involved technologies that are directly related to the [North Korean] intercontinental ballistic missile program," she added, urging Pyongyang to "immediately cease its provocative actions and instead choose engagement."

South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japanese Foreign Minister Hayashi Yoshimasa held a three-way conference call to discuss a response to the North's latest satellite launch Thursday.

The top envoys agreed to closely pursue the real-time sharing of missile warning data, increase missile defense cooperation and regularize trilateral exercises as agreed upon by their leaders at the Camp David trilateral summit last week, according to Seoul's Foreign Ministry.

They also agreed to review additional unilateral sanctions against the North in response to the latest launch.

South Korean officials point out that a third launch could coincide with or fall close to the founding of the North's ruling Workers' Party on Oct. 10.

Another period where North Korea often flaunts its military prowess is its state founding anniversary, which falls on Sept. 9.

A Unification Ministry official told reporters in Seoul Thursday that Pyongyang likely confirmed its botched launch so swiftly a second time because it had notified Japan's Coast Guard of its plan to launch already.

"As the whole world was watching this launch, it was realistically impossible to hide its failure, and since it made a prior notification on the satellite launch, North Korea must have had no choice but to disclose it," the official said.

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