MOSCOW, May 31.North Korea's failure to launch its first military reconnaissance satellite is due to the low level of its technological base, but the Koreans can succeed if they develop the space industry, Ivan Moiseev, head of the Russian Space Policy Institute, said.
Earlier, the Central Telegraph Agency of the DPRK (CTAC) reported that on May 31 at 6.27 (0.27 Moscow time) the military reconnaissance satellite «Mulligon-1» («Telescope -1») was launched into space, but at the stage of launching the engine of the second stage of the new rocket — carrier type «Chhollima-1» (the mythical winged Korean horse, «capable of overcoming a thousand li per day»), a problem arose, as a result of which the rocket fell into the Yellow Sea.
“This attempt to launch something serious with a small rocket, this, firstly, requires a fairly reliable rocket, and secondly, technologies that would allow doing a reconnaissance function in the cubesat format. In principle, even universities and schoolchildren do this, but on the existing technological base, while North Korea has its own technological base, which does not demonstrate anything successful,» Moiseev said.
At the same time, the expert added, the DPRK is among the top ten countries in the world capable of launching satellites into orbit, so if the Koreans continue to invest in the space industry, sooner or later they will succeed.
The National Space Development Agency of the DPRK called the reasons for the fall of Chollima-1 the unreliability and instability of the new rocket engine system and the characteristics of the fuel used. The DPRK promised to find specific causes in the near future, correct the shortcomings and restart the launch.