North Korea has built up a reputation for being one of the strictest and most rigid
countries in the world.
From their tight control on emigration to their unforgiving labor camps, it’s no question
that North Korea is not messing around.
One of the most notable aspects of North Korea has been their missile and rocket development
effort.
The media has been pointing to this as being a major threat for decades now, and leaders
around the world have consistently tried to get North Korea to denuclearize.
As the world powers move into space and create things like the US Space Force, however, will
North Korea be able to keep up or is nuclear technology their last hoorah?
Well, here’s everything we know about North Korea’s elusive space agency.
Taking a look back, North Korea didn’t establish a space program for quite some time after
World War 2.
It wasn’t until the 1980s that North Korea created the Korean Committee of Space Technology
or the KCST.
The KCST was originally responsible for everything related to the country's space effort from
designing new satellites to developing launch technology.
The organization's first step though was building a launch facility.
In the early 1980s, the KCST built the Tonghae Satellite launching ground in the North Hamgyong
Province.
The construction effort wasn’t super organized though.
The North Koreans built the launch facility on and off throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
By 1985, they completed construction of their launch pad, but aside from that, they didn’t
have much to show after years of construction.
They simply had a rudimentary command bunker, a radar facility, and a few storage and support
buildings.
The initial goal was to just reverse engineer the Soviet Union’s Scud rocket and produce
their own copies though.
So, the rudimentary infrastructure was enough for the time being.
Throughout the 1990s, however, the North Koreans would significantly expand this facility.
Reports suggest that the site grew from just 2 kilometers in length to 9 kilometers in
length.
The new additions included a missile assembly facility, a fuel storage facility, a guidance
and range control centre, and tracking facilities.
As the Tonghae Satellite Launching ground was finished up, the North Koreans shifted
their effort to building a new launching site called the Sohae Satellite Launching Station.
Construction began in the early 1990s, but like the Tonghae site, construction would
stretch out for quite some time.
It wasn’t until 2011 that the site was completed.
The North Koreans did get a lot more work done though as the base ended up being 6 square
kilometers which is 5 times larger than the Tonghae site.
Aside from being much larger, the Sohae site was also far more advanced and included elements
such as a static rocket motor test stand and a much more substantial mission control center
instead of the command bunker they used to use.
In terms of actual missions and space programs, the North Koreans have only had three substantial
programs thus far with the first one being Taepodong.
Taepodong was the final result of trying to replicate the Soviet’s Scud rocket.
The Scud rocket was a series of tactical ballistic missiles, so initially, there were fears that
North Korea could use Taepodong as a surface to surface missile.
But, the US Defense Intelligence Agency would later suggest that Taepodong was simply a
test bed for developing more advanced multi-stage missile technology.
Anyway, in August of 1998, North Korea launched Taepodong-1.
North Korean media reported that Taepodong-1 reached orbit within 5 minutes after launch
and that they had successfully launched their first satellite.
But western scientists disagree with this report.
According to their observations, Taepodong-1 was launched and it did reach an altitude
of 200 kilometers.
However, they suspect that the third stage failed to ignite as the satellite never actually
reached orbit.
Based on where the third stage landed, scientists estimate that Taepodong could reach up to
5900 kilometers though if the mission was successful.
And that brings us into their second attempt with Taepodong.
North Korea launched Taepodong 2 in July of 2006, nearly 8 years after Taepodong 1.
Unfortunately, there is absolutely no footage or images relating to this mission, but the
US Department of Defense did confirm that the launch did in fact take place.
There’s not too much to discuss though as the missile apparently failed just 40 seconds
after launch.
Though it doesn’t seem like the reliability of the missile was improved, observers speculate
that the missile was much more powerful.
It’s estimated that each stage of the missile could have a burn time of about 100 seconds
which translates to a total burn time of 5 to 6 minutes.
With a bit of tweaks, this could allow for up to 9000 kilometers of range with a payload
capacity of up to 500 kilograms.
Unfortunately for North Korea though, this would never materialize, and they would move
onto a new series of rockets called Unha.
Unha, which means galaxy, was basically a frankenstein rocket that incorporated elements
from a few different rockets.
The first stage of Unha uses four Nodong motors which are simply enlarged versions of Scud
motors.
Originally, the second stage was thought to be based on the Soviet SS-N-6 missile.
But, now the general consensus is that the second stage is also based on the Scud rocket.
As for the third and fourth stage, these seem to be identical to the Iranian Safir rocket’s
second stage.
So, once again, it doesn’t seem like North Korea added much themselves when designing
the Unha rocket as it's just a combination of Scud and Safir.
Despite this, the Unha rocket would stir up quite a bit of controversy.
You see, according to the United Nations Security Council Resolution of 1718, North Korea was
prohibited from testing ballistic missiles.
And as you might’ve guessed Unha was a ballistic missile.
The US, South Korea, and Japan would all raise red flags that this launch would violate the
agreement.
Even Russia urged North Korea to cancel the planned launch.
Nonetheless, North Korea would go ahead and launch Unha-2 on April 5, 2009 according to
South Korea.
The US Northern Command identified that the first stage of the rocket fell into the Sea
of Japan and the other stages fell into the Pacific Ocean.
The missile traveled a rather impressive 3850 kilometers from the launch site, but the US
suggests that the third stage didn’t actually separate and that the rocket failed to insert
anything into orbit.
North Korea, however, still claims that the rocket was fully successful and that it put
a satellite into orbit.
Moving onto their second launch of Unha, we have Unha-3 which took place in April of 2012.
North Korea was actually super confident about this launch and they even invited observers
from eight different countries to come witness the launch.
But unfortunately for North Korea, the launch was a failure.
We don’t really have any details as to what exactly happened, but it does seem like North
Korea was indeed super close to successfully launching a satellite.
Just 8 months later in December of 2012, another Unha-3 rocket was launched.
And this rocket would successfully launch a satellite into Sun Synchronous orbit.
Though this was a massive milestone for the North Koreans, it wasn’t all good news.
A few days after the launch, Harvard astronomer John McDowell suggested that though the satellite
had reached orbit, it was uncontrollably tumbling in orbit and the satellite had yet to transmit
anything.
Following the partially successful mission, the North Koreans decided that it was time
to rebrand themselves.
In April of 2013, they created a new space agency called the National Aerospace Development
Administration or NADA.
I don’t think North Korea realized that NADA means nothing in Spanish, but this coincidence
has become a running joke within the media.
Anyway, moving onto the final and most recent launch, we have another Unha-3 launch.
This final launch took place in February of 2016, and it seems to be North Korea’s first
fully successful launch.
The director of the scientific research department of NADA confirmed that they had received photographs
from the satellite, and thus far, there has been no evidence suggesting otherwise.
So, North Korea does have the capability to launch small satellites into orbit.
As for the satellites themselves, all of the North Korean satellites are part of the Kwangmyŏngsŏng
program.
China helped North korea develop the first Kwangmyŏngsŏng satellite, and it seems like
North Korea has simply been improving the Chinese design ever since.
There have been a total of four satellites within this program thus far, and two of them
have made it to orbit with one of them tumbling around.
These satellites are simply communication/earth observation satellites, so they’re thought
to be completely benign.
And that’s basically everything we publicly know about North Korea’s space agency.
But that still leaves the question, how dangerous is North Korea’s Space agency?
Well, the Center for Strategic and International Studies or CSIS at Georgetown University answered
just that.
According to the CSIS, there are four major threats that could come from North Korea’s
rocket/missile program with the first being kinetic physical counterspace weapons and
more specifically Kinetic ASATs.
ASAT stands for Anti-satellite weapon, and as the name suggests, these weapons are used
to strategically destroy the satellites of other countries.
Thus far, North Korea has not tested nor announced the development of any Kinetic ASAT technology.
Moreover, even if they wanted to, the CSIS suggests that North Korea still has several
technological hurdles to cross to develop an ASAT, so these aren’t a threat.
Moving onto the second category, we have Non-Kinetic Physical Counterspace Weapons.
One example of such a weapon is launching a nuclear warhead into space and detonating
it.
Some sources suggest that North Korea is actually working on developing such a device.
However, there have been no known tests thus far, and the CSIS doubts that North Korea
has enough technology to create such a weapon without help from China or Russia.
In 2013, a Chinese military commentator actually suggested that North Korea does possess this
weapon.
If this is true, then North Korea likely got it from China or Russia.
But given that North Korea can’t yet produce it themselves, it’s nothing to be worried
about.
Moving on, we have electronic counterspace weapons.
This includes technology that can jam GPS and communication signals from satellites.
North Korea does actually possess this technology, and they have been using the jamming technology
against South Korean satellites since August of 2010.
This actually violates the 1953 Armistice agreement, but no action has been taken.
After all, while jamming signals can be a nuisance, it’s not necessarily dangerous.
So, the international community has more or less just decided to let North Korea have
a blast jamming satellite signals.
And finally, the last major space threat from North Korea is Cyber Counterspace weapons.
This includes hacking satellites and space systems from other countries to extract information
or inject corrupt information.
The North Korea cyber division is actually quite strong especially after Kim Jong Un
took over.
However, western countries seem to still have the edge when it comes to cyber warfare.
So in conclusion, NADA is not that dangerous at this point in time.
They’re able to jam signals and might be able to hack a few satellites.
But, in terms of physical weapons, it looks like we're good to go.
And that’s everything we know about North Korea’s space agency today.
Do you guys think North Korea is a serious threat?
Comment that down below.
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