Kwangmyongsong 2

Launch data:

Spacecraft data:

Mission details:

• The Korean Committee of Space Technology of the Choson Minjujuui Inmin Konghwaguk (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) has announced the planned launch of the Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite. Kwangmyongsong-1 was launched in 1998 Aug but failed to reach orbit, despite North Korean claims to the contrary. The new satellite will use a rocket called Unha-2 ("Galaxy-2"). The 1998 rocket was the Paektusan-1 (using the McCune-Reischauer transliteration scheme; Taepo-Dong was a name assigned by US intelligence and is not the North Korean name of the rocket). Wikipedia tells that Paektusan ("White-headed mountain", also called Baekdu or Baitoushan) is the tallest mountain in Korea.
• The new statement reveals that the name of the launch site is the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground. The site, in Hwadae county of Hamgyong Pukdo province, is near Cape Musu-dan and was previously referred to in Western analysis as Musudan-ri.
• North Korea's Unha-2 rocket was launched from the Tonghae space center at 02:30 UTC on Apr 5, 2009. The second stage was tracked by Japan as it flew over that country and fell in the Pacific.
• North Korea’s second attempt to launch a satellite, Kwangmyongsong 2, was announced as a successful launch by the North Koreans, but nothing was tracked in orbit. The same situation happened with the August 30th, 1998 launch attempt of Kwangmyongsong 1.
• According to North Korean statements, a third rocket stage placed the Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite in a 490 x 1426 km x 40.6 deg orbit at 9min 2 sec after launch, but the US claims the launch failed and no other nation has reported the detection of any orbiting objects from the launch. If the third stage did not separate from the second, the orbit may have been around (very roughly) -4550 x 490 km x 40.8 deg. An Apr 5 Yoimuri Shimbun report said the impact was 1270 km E of Japan, but on Apr 6 the same paper was reporting a longer range and it seems that the second stage impact was in fact in the region expected before launch.
• There has been confusion over the Kwangmyongsong 2 launch time, despite the North Koreans news agency KCNA quoted 0220:00 UTC as the launch time.
  Several sources, including NORAD, give the launch time as closer to 02:30 UT, and Russian sources say they tracked the launch at 0232 UTC. The Worldview-1 satellite took an image of the launch contrail from space reportedly at 0231:16 UTC, which must have been within a couple minutes of launch, so 02:30 UTC as the best current estimate of the launch time.
• Western analysts have assumed that the Unha-2 uses a larger-diameter first stage than the Paektusan-1 rocket used in the 1998 launch attempt; this has now been confirmed by images of the rocket released by North Korea. The pictures are consistent with a rocket about 27m high and 2.2m in diameter, including a 14m long first stage, an 8m long second stage with a diameter of 1.2-1.4m, and a third stage fairing with a diameter around 1.0m (but possibly enclosing a smaller actual third stage).