The Kwangmyŏngsŏng programme is a class of experimental satellites developed by North Korea. The name Kwangmyŏngsŏng (광명성 (光明星 "Bright Star" or "Brilliant Star" in Korean) is from a Chinese-language poem by Kim Il-sung. The first class of satellite built by Korea, the program started in the 1980s. There appear to have been three launch attempts.
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According to North Korea Academy of Science's Academician Kwon Tong-hwa, the SLV was developed in the 1980s when the late leader Kim Il-sung decided to launch a Korean satellite. At the beginning of the 1990s, the capacity to achieve this goal was already reached.
The decision to send a North Korean satellite was precipitated by the successful launch of South Korea's first satellite, Uribyol 1, on August 10, 1992[1] and its second satellite, Uribyol 2, on September 26, 1993,[2] both by an European Ariane 4 SLV. In a late-1993 meeting of the Korean Workers' Party Central Committee, Kim Il-sung expressed his desire to quickly place a satellite into orbit, leading to the expansion of North Korea's nascent space program and the requirement for a space launch vehicle.
The Paektusan-1 SLV is the civilian version of the Taepodong 1 intermediate-range ballistic missile, with an additional spin-up solid motor orbital insertion third stage. The first and second stages of the SLV are made up of Nitric acid/UDMH liquid propellant rocket engines and the third spin-up orbital insertion stage of a solid propellant engine. The first stage consists of a No-Dong 1 MRBM and is propelled by a single YF-2 engine from the Chinese DF-3 missile, that burns for 95 seconds. The second stage is made of a Hwasong-6 SRBM, a derivative of the Scud-C, and burns for 171 seconds in two times. The third stage is derived from the Chinese HQ-2 booster, a spherical solid-propellant motor with a burn time of about 27 seconds. Attached to the third stage is the payload assembly, which has a length of 2.50 metres (8.2 ft).
Only five years later, preparations for the first satellite launch began at the Musudan-ri Launch Facility on August 7, 1998. Two weeks later, Korean People's Navy vessels proceeded to their mission area into the Sea of Japan (East Sea of Korea). By that time, South Korea had already placed two other satellites into space with Delta-7925 SLVs: Koreasat 1 and Koreasat 2, on August 5, 1995, and on January 14, 1996, respectively.
The mission was planned with an initial evening launch window that was favorable for observation. After a weather forecast predicted heavy winds and rain on the evening of the first launch window in question, the decision was then taken to delay the launch until 12:07 when the weather had cleared.
Liftoff occurred on August 31 at 12:07 local time. The first stage was separated from the rocket 95 seconds after the launch. The fairing shroud separated 144 seconds after the launch, then the second stage separated itself from the rocket 266 seconds after the launch. North Korea claimed that the third stage put the satellite into orbit 27 seconds after the separation of the second stage.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command reported that the satellite failed to reach orbit, and burned up in the atmosphere.[3] The failure is believed to have occurred during the third stage burn.[4][5]
North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il revealed that the country had spent 200-300 million dollars for the satellite project during a summit with then-South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung in 2000.
The official Korean Central News Agency announced on September 1, 1998, Juche 87, that a satellite called Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1 had been launched at 3:07 UTC the day before from a launch site in Musudan-ri, Hwadae-gun, North Hamgyong Province by a Paektusan-1 satellite launch vehicle (SLV). This launch would have made North Korea the ninth space-faring nation, after the Russia, the United States, France, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, India and Israel.[6]
In its December 26, 1998 edition, the Rodong Sinmun announced that North Korea would launch another satellite in the future. Then South Korea announced in 2002 it was also planning to develop its own satellite launch vehicle KSLV-I by 2007, based on technology flown on the KSR-III test vehicle.
In a very controversial series of missile tests conducted on the occasion of the United States' Independence Day on July 4, 2006, a Paektusan-2 SLV was launched for the first time according to Jane's Defence Weekly.[7]
The internet edition of the Choson Sinbo, published on June 21, 2006, suggested that the payload of the Paektusan-2 SLV civilian version of the Taepodong 2C/3 ICBM could have been made of the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 （光明星二號） communication satellite, with a mass ranging from 170 to 550 kilograms (370 to 1,200 lb). Launched from the Musudan-ri launch center, the rocket failed after only 42 seconds.
On April 29, CNN informed that "North Korea threatened to conduct a nuclear test and more ballistic missile tests if the U.N. Security Council doesn't apologizes to North Korea and withdraw its condemnation of Pyongyang's rocket launch earlier this month, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported." [8]
Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 was a satellite the North Korean government claimed to have placed into orbit in April 2009. According to the North Korean government, an Unha-2 rocket carrying the satellite was launched on Sunday 5 April 2009 at 11:20 local time (02:20 UTC) from the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground at Musudan-ri in northeastern North Korea.[9] However, officials in South Korea and the United States reported that the rocket and any payload had fallen into the Pacific Ocean.[10][11] The Russian Space Control concurred, stating that the satellite "simply is not there".[12][13]
Prior to the launch, concern was raised by other nations, particularly the United States, South Korea and Japan, that the rocket was a Taepodong-2,[14] and the launch might be a trial run of technology that could be used in the future to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile.[15] The launch of the rocket was sharply condemned by the United States[16] and the European Union,[17] while the People's Republic of China[18] and Russia[19] urged restraint. On 13 April 2009, the United Nations Security Council issued a Presidential Statement condemning the launch as a violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1718 (2006).[20] One day after, on 14 April 2009, North Korea called the Presidential Statement an infringement on a country's right for space exploration embodied in the Outer Space Treaty and withdrew from Six Party Talks.[21]
On occasion of the 10th anniversary official celebrations, Radio Pyongyang broadcasted on August 31, 2008 and received in China, pledged not only for further satellite launches of the Kwangmyŏngsŏng series, but also for the resumption of its nuclear program, starting with the reactivation of the plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear plant, shut down only a year earlier.[22]
Furthermore, on September 11, 2008, supporting previous announcements to launch satellites into space, the existence of a totally new launch facility exceeding both in size and sophistication the Musudan-ri test base on North Korea's east coast was revealed. Known as Tongch'ang-dong Space Launch Center and located in the North Pyongan province at , it was built on the former site of a small village called Pongdong-ri. Thus, the first stage of a Paektusan-1 SLV would land in the Sea of Japan at about . The old Musudan-ri test center was not designed for winter-time operations, but only for the occasional space satellite launch campaign in the spring, summer or fall seasons, the SLVs being not easily prepared for launch.
The new space center includes a movable launch pad and a ten-storey tall tower capable of supporting the DPRK's largest SLVs, including a rocket motor test pad similar in size and design to the Iranian Shahid Hemmat rocket test facility built east of Tehran. There are also support buildings, a vertical assembly building, and an engine test stand among other structures. Following the relocation of scores of new aerospace factories far away from the Demilitarized Zone, it is specially built in the mountainous northwest part of the country, closer to the Chinese allied border, at only 50 kilometres (31 mi) of it and therefore benefiting from the Chinese airspace protection, the site is consequently meant to be safer.[23] The site is said to be completed at 80 percent, and will be fully operational within a year or two. Baekdusan-2 SLV engine ignition test have already started.[24]
Meanwhile, South Korea's KARI and its Ministry of Science & Technology plan to develop a national satellite launch vehicle now based on the Russian Angara space booster, capable of putting a 100 kilograms (220 lb) payload into orbit by the end of 2008 and a lower-orbit commercial satellite with 1,000 kilograms (2,200 lb) by 2010, with further upgrades planned for increasing the payload capability to 1,500 kilograms (3,300 lb) by 2015. It is about to reach its final phase with a first launch of the new KSLV-1 launch vehicle with a small satellite from the new Naro Space Centre in South Jeolla Province, with completion of the spaceport and launch of a 1,500 kilograms (3,300 lb) South Korean satellite into sun-synchronous orbit by 2015.
KARI then announced that the launch scheduled for December 21, 2008 would be pushed back to sometime during the second quarter of 2009, after Russia’s Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, which is providing technology for the project, due to the fact that it failed to deliver the ground test vehicle, a machine for testing the rocket engine and propulsion system, in time. In addition, the development of the South Korean KSLV-2, the first that was to be wholly South Korean-made, has been shelved as import of Russian rocket technologies. Development was expected to begin immediately after the launch of KSLV-1, delaying the government's space ambitions, including the launch of a home-grown lunar probe.
The satellite Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1 has since featured prominently in North Korean festivities and celebrations such as the mass games. Commemorative stamps showing the real shape of the satellite still attached to the spin up solid motor orbital insertion third stage and more than two orbits have also been printed on several occasions.[25][26]
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