North Korea Missile Launch Fails

An anonymous reader writes "Remember the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launch by the North Koreans last night? You know, the one that went over Japan and supposedly put a 'communications satellite' into orbit. Well, according to the US Northern Command and NORAD it has been a complete and utter failure, with the second stage and payload 'falling in the Pacific.'"

Quite so...

[denzacar]

Particularly cause they DO plan to launch a few more.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13432014&source=features_box_main [economist.com]

For weeks, American military intelligence, using its own satellite images, had followed launch preparations at the Musudan-ri missile site near North Korea's eastern seaboard. Given that a brand-new missile complex is nearly finished on the western seaboard from which the next Taepodong-2 launch had been expected, the timing and place of these preparations caused some experts to scratch their heads. Yet South Korea is due to launch its first satellite into space this summer, so from the North's viewpoint, a space race is on. Other international factors probably played a part, of which the most important was to test President Barack Obama's new administration. Marginalisation ranks high among the regime's fears.

Makes one wonder if they perchance don't have another one ready to be launched from the new launch site?

Re:Opportunity

[XorNand]

Not necessarily. I'm sure Western scientists would love to know *why* it failed. It would be interesting to know if we have the capability to salvage it though (assuming North Korea didn't include an auto-destroy mechanism onboard).

Re:Failure in what sense?

[carlmenezes]

Sheldon Cooper, is that you? This is Leonard. I disagree. The Taepodong 2 that they launched was a 3 stage rocket capable of delivering a 500kg payload. That's enough for a nuke. The first stage landed in the ocean west of Japan. The second stage landed in the ocean east of Japan. So that says they had a successful launch, successful separation of the first and second stages and a successful flight of the second stage - over 200 seconds of continuous flight. That's quite a bit considering their previous test blew up only 40 seconds after launch - the first stage exploded. Now, do you still think they didn't learn from their mistakes? Sure, there might be a nut in the seat of power, but don't let that discredit their scientists' and engineers' capability.

Re:Opportunity

[RoboRay]

The US definitely have the ability to salvage it, if it were found. Locating it would be the hard part. Just estimating, but I'd have to put the probability at just about zero.

Re:Third party verification?

[rnelsonee]

Yeah, phrases like "complete and utter failure" don't really help. As far as I know, this was 100% successful - who's to say the second stage was even present? And a satellite? I know the administration told the public that they launched a satellite, but that doesn't mean they were really trying to do so. Many North Koreans aren't aware that we've even landed on the moon yet (according to a NatGeo documentary I saw), so it's not too hard to fool them.

We do know that they launched a rocket a considerable distance - enough to hit the largest metropolitan area on Earth, and one of U.S.' closest allies; and once they get a second stage, chances are they can us US territory. It's not something we should just write off.

Re:Opportunity

[MichaelSmith]

The missile had to land in the Pacific. The NK leadership may be crazy but they are not stupid. Flying a launcher over the USA creates a risk that hardware would drop on to the USA. If that happened North Korea would be in all kinds of trouble. They know that and will not allow their launchers to leave the pacific ocean. I would be interested to see how high this launcher flew though. That would tell us how much energy they have available.

Re:Opportunity

[glueball]

Western scientists would love to know *why* it failed

Maybe. What might be more interesting is to know the precise machining and designs that worked so that a "signature" NK ICBM was cataloged. This way, if the same machining shows up in Iran, Syria, or others the world community can trace the lineage.

Re:Opportunity

[ehintz]

Your estimate is almost certainly far too pessimistic.

The USN was doing skunkworks stuff during the cold war, with purpose-outfitted subs, finding interesting bits of Soviet hardware in some crazy deep waters. I seriously doubt that they've forgotten how to do it. My money would be that they've continue to develop the capability, but even if all it's done is stagnate they've already proven very competent at finding Soviet needles in oceanic haystacks. And NORAD will have some very accurate tracking to help them start the search. Hell, I'd bet even money they've already got something out in the Pacific somewhere waiting for just such an opportunity. Or there's a lot of crewmen who just went off leave all of a sudden.

Have a read of "Blind Man's Bluff" sometime, there's some rather fascinating escapades in there.

Re:... lol.

[Toonol]

They don't benefit from nuking Japan. But the benefit GREATLY by being ABLE to nuke Japan.

Just like their ability to annihilate Seoul; it would be a suicide attack, but that doesn't stop it from keeping the entire civilized world at bay.

Re:Opportunity

[palegray.net]

Speaking as an ex-submariner, I pretty certain you're right on target.

Re:Remember Project Vanguard?

[Jubedgy]

Another contributing factor to losing out to the soviets was the issue of overflight rights. At the time, we had been sending spy planes to take pictures of soviet territory (despite their objections). Since satellites would be flying over foreign countries, the issue of satellite overflight rights had to be decided (especially so we could use them to spy on the sovs). The US had two options: get their first (with the glory of being first), and hope that their were no foreign objections. After an orbit or two, the issue would be settled much like the right of free passage in the ocean. The second option was to let the soviets get their first and not bring the issue up. The latter option provided the easiest route.

I'm not saying Vanguard rockets were sabotaged, but it may have slowed down the acquisition bureaucracy enough to give the USSR the edge.

Re:Opportunity

[joocemann]

It doesn't matter. We have missile intercept technology since over a decade ago. Remember how the Chinese shat bricks over our starwars program? Furthermore, if N.Korea decides to truly do anything in that caliber, they will be strongly smitten by all major forces of the world ---- to the point of nonexistence. ... The true worry is what would we do with the N. Koreans that survive! Is it appropriate to rebrainwaish them to be 'unbrainwashed'? If not, do we let them freely into the rest of the world that they are so heavily influenced to hate and wish harm upon? Do we leave them there to rot and die, and regain a small existence that is simply a smaller version of what they currently already have?

Bananas.

Re:... lol.

[goodmanj]

Why would any nation want to isolate itself the way the DPRK is isolated?

Because the nation's leader is a vain, paranoid demagogue, who knows that if his people ever come in contact with the outside world and realize that the rest of the world is mostly full of nice, reasonable people who get to eat more than 500 calories a day, they'll all rise up and murder him in his sleep.

the tiny country is being stomped on for no good reason other than for siding with the losing superpower from the twentieth century

That, and the fact that the moment the world stops stomping, they'll march a million men across the border and burn Seoul, one of the greatest free cities on Earth, to the ground.

You may be right that their posturing towards the U.S. is a result of their being boxed in by cold war politics. But they've made it clear that their attitude towards South Korea is anything but posturing.

Re:... lol.

[michaelmuffin]

can you give a link that shows Japan as a protectorate of the United States of America?

well there's the UN charter and appealing to the Security Council to take action, but more specifically there's the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Mutual_Cooperation_and_Security_between_the_United_States_and_Japan [wikipedia.org]:

Under the treaty, both parties assumed an obligation to maintain and develop their capacities to resist armed attack in common and to assist each other in case of armed attack on territories under Japanese administration. It was understood, however, that Japan could not come to the defense of the United States because it was constitutionally forbidden to send armed forces overseas (Article 9).

Re:... lol.

[Hal_Porter]

So is North Korea really a bogeyman? I think they give themselves a lot more headache than anyone else tries to pin on them. Why not just set up a "cute dictatorship" by declaring Kim Jong Il "familial monarch" (britain I am looking at you) or "prime minister"

I think you totally misunderstand how these governments really work. The slightest hint that they are unwilling to use force against people, the whole thing disappears - everyone goes from loving the leader to hating his guts overnight. And then the people that run it get killed like Ceausescu and his secret police goons did unless they can leave the country really fast.

why would the US want to take that risk?

[SuperBanana]

Also, we'd probably be able to tell exactly what the purpose of this rocket was: ICBM or satalite. That can drastically alter the type and severity of potential US/UN retaliation.

And why would the US be interested in spending millions of dollars to retrieve and analyze the parts, only to find out that the missile was in fact for satellite purposes?

It'd be some serious egg on the face of the world if North Korea really is just trying to get a satellite into orbit. Has anyone except the US and South Korean military confirmed that the launch was a failure?

Re:Opportunity

[bitrex]

North Korea's entire ballistic missile program has essentially based on cobbling together different variations of Soviet Scud missiles, a design which the essentials of are approaching 60 years old. The major advance for the Taepodong-2 would be the use of the R-27 first stage, which I believe actually has gimbaled main engines instead of graphite fins for thrust vectoring. If it's true that the failure occurred at second stage ignition instead of with the first stage only a few seconds after launch (as has been the case in the past) then they've overcome a major hurdle, as a gimbaled first stage is essential to get good efficiency for long ranges. The Nodong based second stage appears to be a proven design, so if the problem is just the interfacing my somewhat-educated guess is that they're 90% of the way there. Of course the second stage probably is still using fins for thrust vectoring so the CEP of the unholy combination would probably something laughable by modern standards like 10 miles, but obviously one gets the feeling that range is their big concern right now, not accuracy.

Re:... lol.

[gtall]

That might have had something to do with Clinton administration warning the incoming Bush administration that N. Korea was sandbagging on the last nuke treaty they signed. N. Korea did dismantle the nuke plant in question, but failed to report they were building a newer better one. When Bush got into office, he was presented with a N. Korea that had been caught clearly lying.

Re:rational = predictable

[cyberchondriac]

Yeah but what cayenne8 is saying is that Saddam acted like he had weapons he was hiding, and because Saddam used stalling tactics on Blix's crew time and time again, giving the illusion (if not for real)that he was cleaning up areas and moving weapons before the UN could get there to inspect. IIRC, Saddam flatly denied access to many areas in some cases (even if he rescinded later) which still bought him time. How could Blix have known if there were weapons there or not with all that going on? Forensic testing? Is that 100% foolproof? So the UN report's credibility was questioned - whether it was right or wrong, there was too much uncertainty. When cops do a drug raid on a house they don't announce their intent 2 days prior - they'd never find anything either.
I guess the big question is, how many UN inspections did they manage to pull off without prior notice being given (or tipped) to the Iraqi government, and without the ever present Iraqi "minders"? We still don't know if any weapons were smuggled to Syria, but that's still a possibility too. We may never know.
There was good reason for suspicion; Saddam had bio weapons scant years earlier, so there was definitely a precedent there - it was not just a fairy tale made up out of thin air. The guy had made and used bio weapons before, that much was solid fact. Considering Saddam's behavior and actions during the inspections, even if just a bluff, he was sending the wrong signals.