North Korea has said its attempt to put a second spy satellite into orbit failed when the rocket it was on exploded.
The admission came late on Monday after South Korea’s military reported the launch of an “unidentified projectile”.
“The launch of the new satellite carrier rocket failed when it exploded in mid-air during the flight of the first stage,” the deputy director general of North Korea’s National Aerospace Technology Administration said in a report carried by state media.
An initial analysis suggested that the cause was a newly developed liquid fuel rocket motor, but other possible causes were being investigated, the report said.
Officials in South Korea and Japan had said earlier that the launch appeared to have failed.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea fired an “unidentified projectile southwards” over the Yellow Sea and that several minutes afterwards many fragments were spotted in the sea.
In Japan, public broadcaster NHK reported a similar outcome.
A senior Japanese Ministry of Defence official told reporters: “The missile did not fly into the area that had been announced, and the situation is not as North Korea had intended. We are still analysing whether it is a satellite or not,” Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported.
Japan had issued an emergency alert ordering evacuations in southern Okinawa prefecture before lifting the warning and saying the rocket was not expected to fly over Japanese territory.
The nuclear envoys of South Korea, the United States and Japan spoke on the phone following the failed launch and strongly condemned the attempt, noting it was a direct violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions banning Pyongyang’s use of ballistic missile technology, and posed a serious threat to regional peace and security.
