Is North Korea Ready to Put Another Satellite Into Orbit?

Jeffrey Lewis

June 3, 2015

Is North Korea Gearing Up for Another Space Launch?

On May 8, KCNA carried a typically vituperative essay by North Korea’s national space authority stating that “No matter who dares grumble and no matter how all hostile forces challenge the launch, satellites of Juche Korea will soar into the space one after another at the time and place designated and decided by the supreme leadership of the Korean revolution.”

The new statement follows extensive coverage in recent months of North Korea’s space ambitions. On May 4, North Korean state media showed Kim Jong Un visiting “the newly-built General Satellite Control Centre of the National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA).” The new center looks like something out of the Jetson’s but with a monumental oil painting of Kim Jong Il contemplating a rocket dominating the entrance to remind you this is still North Korea.

The statement is the latest in a series of stories that highlight the role that space technology plays in North Korea’s economic development and national defense. The visit by Kim to see this “splendid edifice” is perhaps more significant. The new control center shows in a dramatic way what the statement says in words: North Korea’s space ambitions are real, however incongruous they may appear against the backdrop of the country’s poverty and political repression.

Construction of the new facility-located near the headquarters of North Korea’s National Defense Commission (NDC) in Pyongyang-began in 2014.[1] Images from the interior show that the building remains to be outfitted with computer terminals, wall displays and other equipment necessary for a functional satellite control center. But Kim Jong Un’s early trip to the site was not unusual. He often visits important state projects during their final stages of construction, leaving ribbon-cutting and other mundane opening ceremonies to lower level functionaries.

The New Satellite Control Center is expected to replace an older facility located in northwest Pyongyang. North Korea permitted foreign journalists and space experts to visit that control center in April 2012 for the (ultimately failed) rocket launch that was to celebrate the centenary of the late Kim Il Sung’s birth. Kim Jong Un observed the successful December 2012 Unha launch from the same location, although the interior was radically changed in the intervening months prompting outsiders, including myself, to wonder whether it was even the same room. Ultimately, measurements of the room and other information suggested that the satellite control center had been significantly modernized between April and December…Read on.