Kim Jong-un says North Korea’s first military spy satellite is ready, clears launch

Seoul, April 19: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country had completed the development of its first military spy satellite and ordered officials to proceed with the launch at an undisclosed date, state media reported on Wednesday.

Building a space-based surveillance system is one of Kim’s main goals in boosting his military capabilities to force the United States to abandon what he calls hostile policies, such as military exercises with ally South Korea and international economic sanctions on North Korea. North Korea prepares to use nuclear weapons material as Kim Jong Un asks people to scale up production.

Previous missile and rocket tests have shown North Korea can send satellites into space, but many experts question whether it has cameras advanced enough to conduct espionage from satellites because only low-resolution images have been released after past launches.

During a visit to the country’s aerospace agency on Tuesday, Kim said having an operational military reconnaissance satellite was crucial for North Korea to use its war deterrence effectively.

Kim cited what he said was a serious security threat posed by what he said was the “most hostile rhetoric and clear actions” of the U.S. and South Korea this year, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

Kim said Military Reconnaissance Satellite 1 was completed in April and ordered an effort to expedite final preparations for launch on a planned date he did not disclose. He said North Korea would have to launch several satellites to firmly establish intelligence-gathering capabilities, KCNA said.

North Korea said its ongoing series of weapons tests, including last week’s first test of a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile aimed at hitting the continental United States, was in response to joint military drills by the United States and its regional allies South Korea and Japan. North Korea has conducted about 100 missile tests since early last year and about 30 this year.

The U.S. and South Korean militaries have been expanding joint exercises to bolster deterrence against North Korea’s growing nuclear threat.

This week, the allies launched 12 days of air drills involving some 110 warplanes and a one-day naval missile defense exercise with Japan.

The spy satellite is one of a series of major weapons systems Kim has vowed to develop, along with solid-propellant intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered submarines, hypersonic missiles and multiple-warhead missiles. North Korea has since tested such weapons, but it is unclear how close they are to being operational.

When North Korea launched a test satellite in December to evaluate its photography and data transmission systems, it released black-and-white photos showing South Korean cities from space. Some civilian experts in South Korea said at the time that the photos were too crude for surveillance purposes and that they might only be able to identify large targets such as warships at sea or military installations on the ground.

Kim Yo Jong, Kim’s sister and a senior North Korean official, was quick to dismiss that assessment, saying the test satellites carried commercial cameras because there was no reason to use expensive, high-resolution cameras for a single test.

Many outside analysts also assess that North Korea has yet to overcome the last remaining technical hurdles to acquire a functional nuclear missile, such as a missile with a tiny warhead built on top of the missile and protected during re-entry.

Kim Jong-un said one of the goals of his spy satellites was to gain the ability to “use pre-emptive military force when the situation requires it”.

That suggested his intention to link the spy satellite to North Korea’s escalating nuclear doctrine, which authorizes a pre-emptive nuclear strike.

The KCNA report on Tuesday focused on U.S. military assets such as aircraft carriers and long-range bombers deployed in South Korea in recent months, but made no mention of possible targets in the U.S. mainland, a possible hint that North Korea may intend to use its reconnaissance satellites to identify and attack them with short-range missiles Key targets in South Korea, including U.S. military bases.

Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said North Korea was communicating that its military surveillance satellites would be designed to acquire precise location and movement information in real time so that its missiles and other nuclear weapons could accurately strike targets.

North Korea will likely inform international maritime and telecommunications authorities of its specific launch plans sometime between May and September, he said.

Launching reconnaissance satellites into orbit requires long-range rockets. But the United Nations has barred North Korea from such launches, which it sees as a cover for testing its long-range ballistic missile technology. North Korea tests long-range ICBM (see photo).

North Korea launched its first and second Earth-observation satellites into orbit in 2012 and 2016, but foreign experts say none of the satellites have transmitted any images back to North Korea. The United Nations has imposed sanctions on the launches of these satellites.

North Korea has avoided new U.N. sanctions for its recent ballistic missile tests in 2022 and this year because U.N. Security Council permanent members Russia and China will not back attempts by the U.S. and others to tighten sanctions. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)