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.
Sounds like the second stage never separated –or ignited– giving the birdie about as much thrust as a slab of granite. Hence the splish-splash just east of Japan. No doubt if we were the shooters, we’d call it a catastrophic success. Bureaucracy!
I’m sure the only people more disappointed than the Nork regime are our friendly neighborhood MDA suits, who were counting on the launch to calibrate their radars and to remain relevant.
Quote of the day, from the most righteous Arms Control Wonk blog: Oh-for-three. These guys really suck.
–John Noonan
If the first stage fell into the Sea of Japan/East Sea and the remaining stages and payload fell into the Pacific Ocean, there was a stage separation and some thrust, implying ignition and early shutdown of the second stage engine.
NORAD did NOT disclose rather the second stage has succeed to separate. The only comment made was that the rest of the rocket has landed on Pacific Sea. Repeat, Pentagon did NOT disclose rather or not the second stage has succeed to separate. Japan claimed recently that the rocket did not exceed the minimum speed to launch a satellite into space. It is more likely that the rocket was a missile test bed.
We’re all just speculating here, my friend.
Have to admit pedestrian it certainly is possible. But hell he can launch all he likes worst hell get from the UN is a strongly worded letter.
Unless the japanses decide to smash him.
“Quote of the day, from the most righteous Arms Control Wonk blog: Oh-for-three. These guys really suck.“
Well you know that we sucked too, back in the day. As I recall Vanguard only had two successful launches out of ten. Explorer was better but not by much.
To the thumb suckers opposed to any missile defense, please explain the success of Iran in using Nork technology to ORBIT a satellite last year? That was a real ICBM derived from NORK, Russian and or Chinese technology.
How many more hostile countries must have ICBM’s before the US embraces BMD?
>But hell he can launch all he likes worst hell get
>from the UN is a strongly worded letter.
China and Russia will veto any punishment and sanction against Iran and North Korea. Nothing will be accomplished within UN. Only putting North Korea back on the terror sponsor list is the option President Obama could execute.
China and Russia did in fact veto any UN action, and not even a sternly worded statement can be made.
North Korea has shown again that they really know how to play nations off against each other. In reality they know this is not about the U.N. vs. the DPRK, and more about China vs. Japan & the U.S. played out through global politics. I don’t know enough about Russia to understand their motives.
North Korea & China: 1
Japan, Sth Korea and America: 0
I consider an equal epic fail that either the US or Japan didn’t try to shoot it down despite so much talk in the previous days. Norks and their petty regime have acted bully and pissed so much out of the toilet since the 50s that they need to be confronted with more that strongly worded letters or puny sanctions from the UN.
Well if China and Russia will veto any punishment and sanction against Iran and North Korea, we the rest of the world should make them responsible for their actions.
it’s likely the usn sub force is picking the pieces off the ocean floor right now. more will be known in secret re what went right and wrong than the public will ever hear about.
“Quote of the day, from the most righteous Arms Control Wonk blog: Oh-for-three. These guys really suck.“
Just like the equivalent early US long range rocketry efforts then ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_rocket
Quote of the day, from the most righteous Arms Control Wonk blog: Oh-for-three. These guys really suck.“
Just like the equivalent early US long range rocketry efforts then ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_rocket
Posted by: Watching Them, Watching Us at April 6, 2009 06:45 AM…
Ok, can you please tell me WHEN the Vanguard program was? You DO know what year it is, right?? 2009, the last i checked, not 1949. By the time the Norks can pull their heads out of their bungholes and actually make it work, our interceptors should be dead on…
The norks can’t even feed their own people. Eventually, they will wake up and find out that it’s the 21st century.
Do you think they might be getting tagged by a laser during launch phase?
Well if China and Russia will veto any punishment and sanction against Iran and North Korea, we the rest of the world should make them responsible for their actions.
Posted by: Ivan at April 6, 2009 05:57 AM
—————
But ivan!!! that would mean “going it alone” how dare we consider our rights over the reast of the worlds!!! I mean shouldnt we accept the rest of the worlds will. I mean sure by the rest of the worlds will we have stopped pverty…wait no, no.…well the world has stopped the wars in africa!!.…wait no they havent.…radical islam.…there kinda spreading it.…um…DARFUR!!!.…oh wait they just stopped talking about it…world hunger…emmm
Ok so maybe the world has done pretty much nothing but hey we dont have a moral right to judge.
Im so glade obama is in office now we can cooperate with the rest of the world in finacial systems and energy policy in geneva. Wait a minute…crap..didnt we have a huge war cause we decided that ppl in other countries werent going to tax us.…..sigh.
Ok im gonna go listen to the Who. and drink
Though a lot of people see this launch as a failure I would argue that N. Korea is making progress towards getting a successful launch. This last launch went much better than their first, which disintegrated within minutes of launch. More info here, http://www.newsy.com/videos/north_korea_s_failure_and_success/
Any chance we could recover the upper stage?
OK, it fell in the ocean. Are we going to get it? Are we going to let another country get it?
Nobody seems to be asking.