On Wednesday, North Korea announced that its inaugural attempt to launch a spy satellite into space had ended in failure, dealing a significant setback to the country’s ambitions of bolstering its military capabilities amidst escalating tensions with neighboring countries and the United States.

North Korea expressed its intention to make another launch in the near future, once it has identified and rectified the cause of the mishap that led to the rocket’s descent into the sea shortly after liftoff.

This admission of failure from Kim Jong Un’s regime is an uncommon display of candor. Nonetheless, the attempted launch caused apprehension among neighboring nations, triggering unusual emergency alerts and evacuation advisories that unsettled people in South Korea and Japan, NBC News reported.

The recently developed Chollima-1 rocket, which carried the Malligyong-1 spy satellite, was launched as planned at 6:27 a.m. local time (5:27 p.m. ET Tuesday) from the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground situated in the northwest region of the country, as reported by North Korea’s state news agency, KCNA.

According to KCNA, the rocket encountered a loss of propulsion during the second-stage engine’s abnormal ignition, resulting in its descent into the sea off the western coast of the Korean Peninsula.

The National Aerospace Development Administration of North Korea has committed to investigating the incident thoroughly, identifying any deficiencies, and resolving them before proceeding with another launch as soon as possible, KCNA stated.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff in South Korea reported that they were retrieving potential remnants of the rocket from waters approximately 124 miles west of the South Korean island of Eocheong. The South Korean National Defense Ministry shared photographs showcasing some of the retrieved debris.

Written by staff