North Korean Rocket Launch

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bdewoody

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I haven't seen much about this other than they did launch the rocket. Have our scientists been able to tell yet whether it was a preliminary attempt at creating an orbital satellite launcher or an ICBM
 
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wubblie

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The Russians just confirmed the satellite is in orbit.
 
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bobw

Guest
NORAD and USNORTHCOM monitor North Korean launch

April 05, 2009

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. — North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command officials acknowledged today that North Korea launched a Taepo Dong 2 missile at 10:30 p.m. EDT Saturday which passed over the Sea of Japan/East Sea and the nation of Japan.

Stage one of the missile fell into the Sea of Japan/East Sea. The remaining stages along with the payload itself landed in the Pacific Ocean.

No object entered orbit and no debris fell on Japan.

NORAD and USNORTHCOM assessed the space launch vehicle as not a threat to North America or Hawaii and took no action in response to this launch.

This is all of the information that will be provided by NORAD and USNORTHCOM pertaining to the launch.

http://www.norad.mil/News/2009/040509.html
 
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nimbus

Guest
Hadn't the Japanese said they would shoot down anything flying over their territory?
 
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CommonMan

Guest
wubblie":1eowevdn said:
The Russians just confirmed the satellite is in orbit.

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. — North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command officials acknowledged today that North Korea launched a Taepo Dong 2 missile at 10:30 p.m. EDT Saturday which passed over the Sea of Japan/East Sea and the nation of Japan.

Stage one of the missile fell into the Sea of Japan/East Sea. The remaining stages along with the payload itself landed in the Pacific Ocean.

No object entered orbit and no debris fell on Japan.

If this is true then the Russians are liars too!
 
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aphh

Guest
Is there a source for the Russian claim? Maybe the Japanese indeed managed to shoot Taepodong down?
 
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aphh

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I browsed the Internet and it looks like it can be said with almost certainty that nothing reached orbit, but that the missile did fly many thousands of kilometers enhancing NK's ICBM capability significantly.

On second note, Pyongyang being located at 39N means they could intersect with ISS orbit relatively easily. If they had a launch vehicle, that is.
 
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MeteorWayne

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aphh":3u5quuvn said:
On second note, Pyongyang being located at 39N means they could intersect with ISS orbit relatively easily. If they had a launch vehicle, that is.

Well, once they can put something in orbit :)
 
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aphh

Guest
MeteorWayne":1drja0my said:
Well, once they can put something in orbit :)

For a second I was thinking, that they might threaten to take down ISS with Taepodong 2. But fortunately that is something that only happens in a Bond movie.

Now I hope Kim doesn't browse space.com forums and start getting ideas. By the way, I wonder what was the position of ISS during the NK launch? Maybe they observed the launch visually?
 
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aphh

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Okay, here's my own speculation and conclusion; this was a missile test after all, and because the Security Council had an emergency session, it was also a raging success.

North Korea most likely now possess rockets to potentially reach other continents.
 
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MeteorWayne

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Or maybe not, since it didn't make it to the next continent and splashed in the middle of the Pacific...
 
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silylene

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And it is unlikely that this NK rocket could carry one of the primitive, heavy low-yield NK fizzle nukes, and deliver it in to target in a still operable fashion anyways.
 
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aphh

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MeteorWayne":36weiv5s said:
Or maybe not, since it didn't make it to the next continent and splashed in the middle of the Pacific...

Had it landed in Alaska would have been pretty serious, don't you think? Hence they can't even announce the test to be success, because it was in violation of all the sanctions placed against North Korea already.

Whether it flew the distance required to reach another continent is irrelevant compared to the accuracy of the targeted landing site.

North Korea is said to have chemical weapons.

I'm not a scare monger, I just try to look at it through logical perspective.
 
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dryson

Guest
The logical prospective to take would be that it was only one rocket. The more that countries feed into the paranoia surrounding the launch the fuel is added to the systematic creation of a war with someone getting a itchy trigger finger and launching a retalitory strike. NK ICBM compliment is nowhere as good as lets say Saddam Husseins SCUD Missile launchers. North Korea receives aid from China and Iam quite certain that China would not want to start a war with anyone so they wouldnt give the components to NK necessary to launch a missile towards America. Even if they did launch one towards America, America has not only sea and ground based interceptor type missiles but also missiles that can be launched from the air as well. This isnt the 1950's. Those days of paranoia are over with. I would be more worried about illegals from various countries bringing in man portable missiles and rockets and attacking more feasible targets like dams and electrical power plants, not a missile from a country that is landlocked.

However, I would be concerned if NK launched a salvo of the same type of missiles into Afghanistan or Iraq. That is when tensions should make the ol butt pucker shut.

Here are a few links to quell your paranoia.

Ground to Air Interceptor Missile (GAIM) - http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsart ... x?id=52211
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsart ... x?id=50511

Ship to Air Interceptor Missile (SAIM) -
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsart ... x?id=49023
SM-3 missiles http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/sm3.htm

Air to Air Interceptor Missile - Was unable to locate any intel on aircraft launched missile interceptor missiles.

But on a bright note at least another country is trying to create a space program for itself.
 
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aphh

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I hear you, but I'm not paranoid or even very worried. This launch is interesting from both strategic point of view (what is the purpose of the launch and what are the goals that NK has set, and whether the goals were met).

It's also interesting because supposedly we are dealing with a country with less means to send advanced rockets. Less resources than, say, South Korea, but still significant resources.

Like you said, it is interesting when countries or companies try to launch a rocket.
 
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trailrider

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O.K. There are a number of questions that come up with this launch...

First, what kind of trajectory did the missile fly? Was it a lofted, high-angle trajectory with an apogee of around 600 miles? If so, it was definitely an ICBM! If not, then we can't be entirely certain whether it was a failed satellite launch (insufficient burn time to reach orbital velocity, guidance failure sending it into an orbit that hit the atmosphere, failure of a third stage...if there was one, etc.), or whether it was a depressed trajectory (similar to the Soviet Fractional Orbital Bombardment System...FOBS) with retro rockets actually slowing it out of a partial orbit. Another possibility is that it was a test rocket that intentionally sent the RV (re-entry vehicle) back into the atmosphere at a high speed to test thermal protection for the RV! Some of the answers may lie in the tracking data which I'd bet has been obtained by U.S. and other allied ships observing the test. For example, if the test was of the latter nature, it may have been possible to pick up deceleration data of the payload.

It is also possible that there was nothing in the payload section except ballast, and the test was a developmental test of the booster.

Now, the question is what does the U.S. or the U.N. or Japan, or whoever, do about it. The U.N. is in emergency session over this. So what? About the best thing that can be done is to watch for other activities by the North Koreans, and see if they actually develop a recoverable RV that survives re-entry.

There is also the question of what Kim's motivations really are. If he is merely trying to prove how hot-shot he is, then he may not actually try deploying combat missiles. He has to know what will happen to Pyongyang and the rest of the country if he ever launches a live nuke at the U.S.!

A frankly more scary scenario would entail his selling such a ballistic missile system to "other entities" (use your imagination on that one!!!). Should intel be developed that he is attempting to physically ship hardware off the Korean peninsula, that can probably be interdicted at sea (I doubt the Chinese would allow them to transit by rail or truck). IIRC several years ago some shorter range missiles were purportedly aboard two ships that were in the India Ocean somewhere...and disappeared completely. No trace was allegedly found of the ships, the crew or the cargo.

And the beat goes on...
 
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aphh

Guest
Very interesting speculation, thanks. Also, now comes to mind an incident in NK a few years back, where a whole train station and village nearby were completely blown away.

Apparently they were transporting a missile or it's components by rail and it took and exploded due to a mishap.
 
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drwayne

Guest
Keep in mind that the mechanics/timing/sequence of staging is quite complex, and it took us a while to get it right.

Wayne
 
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trailrider

Guest
O.K. According to the posting on the main board, the TP2 apparently is a three-stage vehicle, with liquid first and second stages and a solid third stage. Apparently the second stage appears not to have completed its burn, and the third stage and the payload then failed to reach orbital velocity (if, indeed, it was intended to do so). The post has not quoted DOD or anyone as to the type of trajectory, so we still don't know if it really was an attempt to launch a satellite.

If they have problems with the second stage, then they may experience some delays in deploying an "operational" ICBM. The same might be true if it is a separation problem between second and third stage. And, again, there is the question of whether they have solved the re-entry heating problem for an RV. Of course, nowadays that may not be so much of a design problem as obtaining/developing the materials.

Meanwhile, CNN was posting a survey wherein 57% of Americans favor "some kind of action" against North Korea. Just what do they expect the U.S. will do, start another war on the Korean penninsula by bombing them? :shock: I still think our best bet is to try to keep them contained, and if they show any signs of successful perfection of this missile, then we may get a chance to test out our Alaskan-based missile defense system! :roll: :!:

Probably get more information and analysis in Aviation Week in the next couple of issues...
 
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CommonMan

Guest
drwayne":2fls38a9 said:
Keep in mind that the mechanics/timing/sequence of staging is quite complex, and it took us a while to get it right.

Wayne
I was watching the Nasa channel last night on TV and it showed we put a satellite in orbit in 1958!
 
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aphh

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CommonMan":2t6yybik said:
I was watching the Nasa channel last night on TV and it showed we put a satellite in orbit in 1958!

True, but that satellite didn't do all that much once on orbit.

There are 2 separate problems involved in satellite and space business, having a launch vehicle that could send payload into orbit and having the payload do something useful once on orbit.

North Korea is (prolly among other things) actually trying to do the same that Space-X already managed to do. North Korea has more money and engineers to throw at the problem, but Space-X has easier access to existing knowledge base.
 
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MeteorWayne

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Actually, Explorer 1 discovered the Van Allen radiation belts, so you can't say it did nothing much :)

"The discovery of the Van Allen Belts by the Explorer satellites was considered to be one of the outstanding discoveries of the International Geophysical Year.

The acoustic micrometeorite detector detected 145 impacts of cosmic dust in 78,750 seconds. This leads for a twelve-day period to an impact rate of 8.0 × 10-3 impacts m-2 s-1.[19]"
 
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aphh

Guest
MeteorWayne":1j2atv64 said:
Actually, Explorer 1 discovered the Van Allen radiation belts, so you can't say it did nothing much :)

"The discovery of the Van Allen Belts by the Explorer satellites was considered to be one of the outstanding discoveries of the International Geophysical Year.

The acoustic micrometeorite detector detected 145 impacts of cosmic dust in 78,750 seconds. This leads for a twelve-day period to an impact rate of 8.0 × 10-3 impacts m-2 s-1.[19]"

Thanks for that correction, I guess I mixed Explorer 1 to Sputnik 1 that did little else than kept sending tiny beeps over the radio. Perhaps it played some music too.

But Explorer 1 actually had precision instruments and detectors onboard.
 
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