
Quelle surprise
Did it hit fail exactly where they aimed predicted?
North Korea's Thursday attempt to launch a "military reconnaissance satellite" failed, state media has reported. The launch occured out of Sohae Satellite Launching Ground in Cholsan County of North Phyongan Province around 04:00 on Thursday, local time. "The flights of the first and second stages of the rocket were normal, …
The article is not very clear on the end result. I'm guessing rapid unscheduled disassembly.
And where did the remains fall down ? The Yellow Sea ?
And are we sure that there was no flying laser in the vicinity ? That unexpected 3rd-stage snafu could very well have been the result of a bit of coherent light interference with the 3rd stage envelope, no ?
Lasers capable of bringing down a missile are very difficult to engineer, requiring a combination of extremely well controlled beam direction, pattern, coherence and focus, and at the same time not melting any vital part of itself.
We'll know when someone has fielded a laser capable of this, because it's such a big technical achievement.
"It turned out that May 2023 "reconnaissance satellite" had no military utility for spying"
That was a very carefully worded conclusion. From what I recall it was carrying a satellite, which contained optical equipment, but would be considered crap by modern military standards and requirements outside of North Korea.
It seems a lot of effort to go to in providing plausible deniability should a ballistic missile test fail and it fell into enemy hands.
I'm not convinced by South Korean claims that it was merely a ballistic missile test, that the payload proves it was just that. But it's hard to blame them for taking the opportunity to demonise North Korea given they, and others, do see them as an existential threat.
It is always amazing that a small, authoritarian state like North Korea believes that they have such a great level of impending need for military reconnaissance, spending billions on a device capable of monitoring multiple nations worldwide, whilst they [continuously] can't reliably feed their own people.
ah-hem, note that this can be said of many nation-states in today's world...
> But it's hard to blame them for taking the opportunity to demonise North Korea given they, and others, do see them as an existential threat.
And, historically, not without very good reason. North Korea *still* view South Korea as the "bit that got away".
They are still technically at war.