North Korea’s first spy satellite, launched in November 2023, is “alive,” space specialists announced on Tuesday (Feb 20), after detecting changes in its orbit.
The most recent development implies that Pyongyang is successfully commanding the spacecraft. However, its powers are unknown.
Following its launch in November, North Korea claimed that the satellite had obtained photographs of sensitive military and political facilities in South Korea, the United States, and other countries, but has yet to disclose any images.
However, independent radio trackers have failed to identify signals from the satellite.
“But now we can say the satellite is alive,” Marco Langbroek, a satellite expert at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, wrote in a blog post.
According to Langbroek, from February 19 to 24, the satellite performed manoeuvres to increase its perigee from 488 km to 497 km (303.2 miles to 308.8 miles).
“The manoeuvre proves that Malligyong-1 is not dead and that North Korea has control over the satellite – something that was disputed,” Mr. Kim added.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry also issued a statement stating that it had determined that the satellite was in orbit, but that it would not comment on the specific study.
Defence Minister reveals satellite shows no signs of secret missions or surveillance activities
On Monday, Defence Minister Shin Won-sik stated that the satellite was not displaying any evidence of conducting other missions or participating in reconnaissance.
“While we indeed currently cannot be sure whether the satellite does successfully take imagery, it at least performs orbital manoeuvres, so in that sense it is functional,” Langbroek wrote of Shin’s comments.
He described the orbit-raising manoeuvre as a remarkable development because the presence of an onboard propulsion engine was unexpected, and North Korean satellites had never been manoeuvred before.
“Having the capacity to raise the satellite’s orbit is a big deal,” Langbroek said.
According to Reuters, Harvard astronomer and orbital tracker Jonathan McDowell stated that the satellite appeared to be fixing its position in space by returning to the same location it was in shortly after launch, rather than making a hostile progression toward another country’s satellite.