Recovery of North Korea’s failed rocket a prized possession for South Korea Why?
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New Delhi: South Korea has been able to recover ‘large sections’ of North Korea’s failed rocket from bottom of the sea where it plunged with a satellite on May 31 after takeoff.
The Salvage could give a much-needed insight into how proficient North Korean’s missile programmes are.
The two pieces, recovered by South Korea's military from waters about 70 meters deep, were likely from the second stage of the rocket that failed to ignite, according to Bloomberg.
Following the sea-dive of the rocket, North Korea linked the failure to ‘unstable character of the fuel used’ what with the second stage carrying a ‘new engine’.
The recovery can broadly give clues to North Korea’s ‘proficiency in engine design’ as the nation is facing sanctions from acquiring foreign help.
The salvage of North Korea’s rocket parts could be ‘the most significant’ by any country so far as it is likely to breach the veil secrecy over its weapon programmes.
Markus Schiller, aerospace engineer from Germany who founded the ST Analytics consultancy, said that recovery could help anyone with good understanding of rockets ‘derive all technical data, performance data, and the manufacturing capabilities of the North Koreans from that hardware including the meaning of proliferation for their whole program’.
The first stage of the rocket ‘ Chollima-1’, named after mythological winged horse, may have used ‘liquid fuel engines’, the same ones that North Korea used on its long-distance ballistic missiles capable of hitting US mainland.
Chollima-1’s second and third stage are found to have ‘smaller diameter’, giving rise to doubts about how they were able to place North Korea’s spy satellite into orbit.
Meanwhile, the Central Committee of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party has vowed to put into orbit another satellite, while calling the failure the ‘ most serious’ this year.
Since Kim came to power, North Korea has been relying more on indigenous technology to try missile launches.
However the country is still in dire need of materials and components which the US said North Koreans in China and Russia are providing the nation.
The US authorities have placed two North Koreans residing in Beijing under sanctions for involving in such activities.