In late May, a North Korean rocket carrying its first military reconnaissance satellite crashed shortly after liftoff; a month later, top North Korean officials vowed to try again to get it aloft, calling the failure a "most serious" one. South Korea now says its analysis of the debris suggests the satellite wasn't sophisticated enough for military use anyway. The New York Times reports that after the rocket carrying the Malligyong-1 crashed off South Korea's west coast, the South wasted no time in getting military resources and divers to the site to retrieve debris. On Wednesday, it confirmed that an analysis of the "key components" it recovered shows the satellite was so rudimentary it was essentially useless from a military perspective.
"After detailed analysis on major parts of North Korea's space launch vehicle and satellite which were salvaged, South Korean and US experts have assessed that they had no military utility as a reconnaissance satellite at all," the military said in a statement, per Reuters. Experts say the resolution of the optical device that was located on the satellite wasn't advanced enough for military use. The Wall Street Journal reports the South didn't weigh in on some lingering questions around the satellite's construction: whether any parts were from foreign suppliers and what type of engine and fuel the rocket used.
Reuters reports the North's satellite launch program began in the 1990s, and that the country did launch objects in 2012 and 2016 that are in orbit to this day, though the North's claims they are functioning observation satellites have never been confirmed. The Journal notes that Kim Jong Un has been pushing for the technology as it would "give Pyongyang surveillance capabilities it lacks now and aid the targeting of a potential nuclear strike." (More North Korea stories.)
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