Fifty years since the USSR launched Sputnik, as the world discusses “the next Space Age” North Korea has conducted a ballistic missile test — which it claims was a “satellite test” — to take the world back to the nuclear age. On 5th April North Korea launched what was probably a three-stage rocket with a satellite intended for orbit, in defiance of the pleas from the US, Japan, China and South Korea.

Conflicting claims have emerged after this test. If North Korea’s version is to be believed then their satellite is circling the globe and is able to transmit data — specifically, patriotic songs praising the “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-II. The US and South Korea say that the launch failed to get anything into orbit.

Experts say the launch vehicle’s (rocket’s) second and third stages did not separate as planned and thus nothing could have been put into orbit.

It’s too early to make any definitive conclusions in the fresh smoke of claim and counterclaim. But one thing can be said: if the launch was a failure, it was a successful failure!

To begin with, North Korea withstood the global pressure and went ahead with the launch. States like Japan had taken the position that they would ‘kill’ the rocket if it seemed that it would fail while over Japanese territory. Japan’s self-defence forces were ready with their Aegis missile-equipped destroyer forces, along with interceptor missiles in the Sea of Japan. However, their anti-missile technology has huge limitations: Japan has no capability, as such, to preemptively hit the missile on its launch pad. To correctly engage a missile during its ascent/descent mode is a very difficult proposition. These so-called ABM (anti-ballistic missile) systems have huge technological limitations; that is the probable real reason why the US chickened out and didn’t attempt to “kill” the missile after initial noises that it would.

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