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Launch preparations are for communications satellite, says Pyongyang

By Trefor Moss

3/2/2009

North Korea has said that it is preparing to launch a space launch vehicle (SLV) carrying an experimental communications satellite - and not a Taepodong 2 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), as the international community had feared.

A spokesman for Pyongyang's Korean Committee of Space Technology said on 24 February that his agency was "making brisk headway" towards launching an Unha 2 rocket - a previously unknown designation - and with it the Kwangmyongsong 2 satellite, the predecessor of which, the Kwangmyongsong 1, was the subject of a failed 1998 launch.

Satellite imagery has revealed that North Korea was actively preparing to launch either an SLV or an IRBM.

Image: An overview of the Musudan-ni launch facility in northeastern North Korea (DigitalGlobe) 107 of 327 words

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North Korea's Musudan-ni launch facility
North Korea's Musudan-ni launch facility

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