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Roundup: S. Korea says DPRK advances rocket launch window to Feb. 7-14

Xinhua, February 6, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has advanced the window of its planned long-range rocket launch to Feb. 7-14, South Korea's foreign ministry said Saturday.

The DPRK notified the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Saturday of its revised plan to launch a rocket to deliver an observation satellite into orbit between Feb. 7 and 14.

The IMO forwarded the revised notification to Seoul, the ministry said by phone. There is no revision in trajectory, making changes only in launch schedules.

Separately, the DPRK announced its revised launch plan via the Notice to Airmen, the notice filed by a Pyongyang aviation authority to alert pilots and those engaging in aviation operations of potential hazards, the ministry said.

On Feb. 2, Pyongyang initially informed international organizations of a planned launch between Feb. 8 and 25.

The advanced launch window by one day indicated the DPRK is capable of launching a rocket as early as Sunday if weather conditions are allowed.

According to weather forecasts, it is expected to have cloudy sky on Monday and snow on Tuesday at the DPRK's Tongchang-ri rocket base on the west coast. On Sunday and Wednesday, it is forecast to have sunny skies.

South Korea's military said Friday that possibility was high for the DPRK to have begun injecting liquid fuel into a rocket that takes about one day or two days. The completion of the fueling means Pyongyang can fire a rocket at any time.

Past experiences showed that the DPRK had fired rockets just one day or two days after the start of launch window. On Dec. 12, 2012 when the DPRK blasted off a three-stage Unha-3 rocket to put a Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite into orbit, the country had declared its launch window between Dec. 10 and 22.

South Korea's military has tightened its missile defense readiness to detect and track a rocket from the DPRK. Han Min-koo, the country's defense minister, on Saturday went aboard an Aegis- equipped destroyer in operations and ordered a seamless surveillance.

To detect and track the possibly launched DPRK rocket, Seoul has deployed surveillance assets, including Aegis- equipped destroyer, ground-based Green Pine radar and Peace Eye airborne early warning and control aircraft.

South Korea has warned of shooting down debris that falls on its territory or territorial waters from a DPRK rocket, which was estimated by the Seoul military to fly over the western border island of Baengnyeong at an altitude of about 180 km. The military regards its airspace as an area below an altitude of 100 km.

Pyongyang's rocket launch, which Seoul sees as a banned test of a long-range ballistic missile, would come about a month after its claim on Jan. 6 that it had tested the first of a hydrogen bomb, the fourth of the DPRK's nuclear detonations.

UN Security Council resolutions ban the DPRK from launching a rocket by use of any ballistic missile technologies. A long-range rocket and a ballistic missile have overlapping technologies.

South Korea and the United States are pushing tough new sanctions in UN Security Council to punish Pyongyang for its fourth nuclear test. Enditem