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This image, released by North Korea’s Korea Central News Agency, reportedly was taken during a launch by North Korea on Feb. 27. (KCNA/Yonhap News)

North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported on page three of its March 6 edition that Saturday’s launch was an “important test” in its plans to develop a spy satellite.

The report read that the “DPRK National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA) and the Academy of Defence Science conducted another important test on Saturday under the plan of developing a reconnaissance satellite.”

The newspaper also said the test launches of ballistic missiles on Feb. 27 and March 5 were part of the reconnaissance satellite development program.

During the 8th Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) Congress in January 2021, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un stressed that the “operation of a military reconnaissance satellite in the near future” was one of the North’s “most important research” projects.

The Rodong Sinmun did not mention who was present at the scene for the “important test” for developing the reconnaissance satellite, nor did the article include any content targeting South Korea or the US.

The article itself was quite short, consisting of two sentences and 53 words in its English version. Unlike last month, it did not publish related photographs this time.

The North’s successive ballistic missile tests — ostensibly for the development of an intelligence satellite — suggest that the moratorium that has been in place on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile testing is in danger of coming to an end after four years and three months. That moratorium had been a key element preserving political stability on the Korean Peninsula since 2018.

South Korean and overseas experts said it was impossible to rule out the possibility of Kim carrying out an ICBM test as a “satellite launch” around the time of the “Day of the Sun” holiday on April 15, which will mark the 110th anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birth.

At the sixth meeting of the 8th Political Bureau of the WPK Central Committee on Jan. 29, Kim was quoted by the Rodong Sinmun as warning that “the hostile policy and military threat by the US have reached a danger line that can not be overlooked.”

The newspaper also quoted Kim as giving an “instruction to a sector concerned to reconsider in an overall scale the trust-building measures that we took on our own initiative on a preferential ground and to promptly examine the issue of restarting all temporally-suspended activities.”

A week ahead of his inter-Korean summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Kim declared at the 3rd Plenary meeting of the 7th WPK Central Committee on April 20, 2018, that “no nuclear test and intermediate-range and inter-continental ballistic rocket test-fire are necessary for the DPRK now,” citing the completion of the North’s weaponization of nuclear arms. In a summit with then-President Donald Trump on June 12 of the same year, he pledged a moratorium on nuclear and ICBM testing.

Indeed, Kim has not conducted any ICBM test launches since his declaration on Nov. 29, 2017, that the North had “complet[ed] the state nuclear force” with its launch of the Hwasong-15 ballistic missile.

Following an “evaluation test-fire of Hwasong 12-type ground-to-ground intermediate- and long-range ballistic missile” on Jan. 30, the Rodong Sinmun reported that the Academy of Defence Science had “made public the earth image data taken from space by a camera installed at the missile warhead.”

At the time, Moon personally presided over a Jan. 30 emergency meeting of the National Security Council (NSC), where he described the situation as “similar to the period in 2017 when tensions were rising as [North Korea] proceeded from intermediate-range ballistic missile launches to long-range ballistic missile launches.”

“We could conclude that it is getting close to reneging on its moratorium declaration,” he added.

The basic technology behind long-range satellite launch rockets and ICBMs is effectively the same, which means they hold the same strategic significance in military terms.

In its Resolution 1874 on June 12, 2009, the UN Security Council prohibited “any launch using ballistic missile technology.”

In its March 6 report, the Rodong Sinmun also wrote, “Through the test, the NADA confirmed the reliability of data transmission and reception system of the satellite, its control command system and various ground-based control systems.”

Writing about the Feb. 27 reconnaissance satellite development test, the newspaper reported on Feb. 28 that it had “helped the NADA and the Academy of Defence Science to confirm the characteristics and working accuracy of high definition photographing system, data transmission system and attitude control devices by conducting vertical and oblique photographing of a specific area on earth with cameras to be loaded on the reconnaissance satellite.”

On Saturday, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said it had detected a “ballistic missile launched [with a transporter erector launcher] toward the East Sea from the area of Sunan in Pyongyang, North Korea, at 0848 hours today,” with a flight distance of roughly 270 km and an altitude of around 560 km. On Feb. 27, it also announced that it had detected a “ballistic missile launched toward from the area of Sunan, Pyongyang,” with a flight distance of roughly 300 km and altitude of 620 km.

On Saturday, the standing committee of the Blue House National Security Council said it “condemns” the launches.

“The repeated launches of ballistic missiles by North Korea are in violation of UN Security Council resolutions,” it said. The message of condemnation indicated a stronger response than its previous expressions of “profound concern and grave regret.”

In addition to being the second day of early voting for the South Korean presidential election on Wednesday, Saturday was also the second day of the Beijing Paralympics and the National People’s Congress, a key political event for China. Additionally, it came 10 days after the armed invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has been shaking up the post-Cold War global order.

The North’s successive ballistic missile launches for “reconnaissance satellite development” purposes appear to signal its intent to continue according to its own plan, regardless of the complex surrounding political situation.

This explains the message shared Saturday by the NSC standing committee, which called the current moment an “extremely serious time,” noting mounting international tensions due to the war in Ukraine and with the Beijing Winter Paralympics and South Korean presidential election.

The NSC urged North Korea to immediately cease any additional actions that stand to raise tensions.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]