North Korea said on Wednesday it had launched a spy satellite into orbit, while its southern neighbor is expected to launch a satellite of its own in late November, marking the start of a space race on the Korean peninsula.
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Why does Pyongyang want this satellite?
Pyongyang is seeking to monitor strategic areas including South Korea and the Pacific island of Guam, where US military bases are located, experts say.
North Korea tried unsuccessfully to launch a satellite for the first time in 1998. In 2021, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared the development of a spy satellite one of the regime’s priorities.
Monitoring these areas in real time would allow Pyongyang to improve its “pre-emptive strike capabilities,” said Lim Eul-chul, an associate professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies.
For their part, Washington and Seoul suspect Pyongyang of developing a new intercontinental ballistic missile with technology similar to that of a satellite launcher.
Did the launch work?
The North Korean satellite appears to have reached orbit, North Korean state media said, the South Korean military said on Wednesday, while stressing that it was too early to say whether it was actually working.
According to Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, launching into orbit does not necessarily mean that the spacecraft “can carry out its reconnaissance functions.”
The launch came after Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested in September following a meeting with Kim Jong Un that his country could help Pyongyang build satellites.
Pyongyang has improved significantly since its first attempt to launch a military spy satellite in late May, which failed, said Cha Du-hyeogn, an analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
Advances that can translate into military gains and give the North the ability to “load nuclear warheads,” he adds.
Did Russia help?
South Korea has warned that Pyongyang is supplying Moscow with weapons aimed at putting a military spy satellite into orbit in exchange for Russian space technology.
Given the short time between Kim and Putin’s meeting and Wednesday’s launch, analysts believe Moscow was only able to help Pyongyang at a “software” level.
“If there had been a serious error that needed to be corrected, such as a change in hardware or design, a November launch would have been physically impossible,” said Chang Young-keun, a professor at Korea Aerospace University.
Where is South Korea?
Seoul is currently relying on Washington to monitor North Korea’s activities.
But South Korea recently announced plans to also launch its own spy satellite into orbit, scheduled to launch on November 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
When the satellite is put into orbit, “Seoul will be able to independently obtain military intelligence on North Korea previously obtained from the United States and Japan,” explains Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher and now heads the Global Institute for North Korea Studies, told AFP.
Two space powers?
In 2022, South Korea launched its first lunar probe, Danuri, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. In the same year, it also became the seventh country in the world to successfully launch a one-ton payload from its own rockets.
The launch of South Korea’s first military satellite on November 30 is part of Seoul’s ambitious $1 billion “Project 425,” which aims to put five high-speed military satellites into orbit by 2025.
In this race for military space capabilities, Pyongyang has also promised to launch more satellites “in a short period of time” to step up its surveillance of South Korea, state media reported.
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