North Korea claims success in building first spy satellite

North Korea has claimed to have completed work on its first-ever military reconnaissance satellite, as leader Kim Jong Un continues to develop the breadth and sophistication of his weapons programmes.

The country’s state media announced on Wednesday that Kim had visited the National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA) the previous day to inspect the “completed” satellite.

An operational spy satellite would strengthen North Korea’s ability to conduct a pre-emptive strike as well as monitor potential incoming threats from the US and South Korea.

“The North Koreans need a strategic reconnaissance capability if they want one day to engage in nuclear war,” said Yang Uk, a defence expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. “If their plans are viable, they need to be able to identify and monitor targets.”

The report, which did not include a target launch date for the satellite, followed a flurry of recent missile launches and other indications that North Korea has made rapid progress in its nuclear weapons programme.

According to the state Rodong Sinmun newspaper Kim, who was accompanied by his daughter Ju Ae on the visit to the aerospace agency, said the development of the satellite had been justified by joint US-South Korean military exercises.

Kim added that one of the objectives for the satellite was to allow his regime to “use pre-emptive military force when the situation demands”.

He has previously said that spy satellites would “provide the armed forces of [North Korea] with real-time information on military actions against it by the aggression troops of the US imperialism and its vassal forces in South Korea, Japan and the Pacific”.

Accusing Washington of turning South Korea into an “advanced base for aggression and an arsenal for war” against the North, Kim described spy satellites as an “indispensable prerequisite” for strengthening his armed forces.

The US, South Korea and Japan this week conducted joint naval drills aimed at detecting and tracking North Korean ballistic missiles.

Pyongyang, which has launched about 100 missiles since the beginning of 2022, has accused the US and its allies of engaging in “provocative invasion war schemes”.

The regime on Friday claimed its first successful test of a solid fuel intercontinental ballistic missile, which can be fuelled in secret, giving adversaries less time to prepare a preventive strike.

North Korea often emphasises the civilian nature of its space programme, which it described in 2021 as “in keeping with the positive international efforts for developing and using space, a common wealth of mankind, and to developing the economy of the country”.

But in December, the NADA claimed to have conducted an “important final-stage test” for a military reconnaissance satellite, releasing low-resolution images purportedly taken from space of the South Korean capital Seoul and the western port city of Incheon.

In its 2022 Space Threat Assessment, the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in Washington said: “It remains unlikely that North Korea is actively pursuing . . . anti-satellite weapons or any non-kinetic physical capabilities.”

But it warned that North Korea’s offensive cyber capabilities could allow it to engage in electronic warfare against its rivals’ space assets.

South Korea, which has a much more advanced civilian and military space programme, conducted its second test of a homegrown solid-propellant space launch vehicle in January as part of a campaign to establish its own space-based reconnaissance capabilities.