back to article Norks uses ballistic missile to launch silent 'satellite'

The UN Security Council has threatened North Korea with the terrors of the Earth after its weekend ballistic missile test. Meanwhile, radio hams are gearing up to work out whether the satellite's making any contact with Earth. Norks' launch, which also put a satellite into orbit, the Kwangmyongsong-4, which was detected by …

Page:

  1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Holmes

    Uh, oh. Enemy du jour detected, closing fast!

    the rest of the world suspects the launches are ballistic missile tests

    I would say that's called "having a firm graps of the obvious"

    Note that Sputnik was evidently a "ballistic missile test" even though it had a little radio transmitter as payload.

    Also, Samantha Powers bleeding publicly for a peaceful world again and calling for "acts"? How are Libya and Syria coming, then?

    1. Stoneshop
      Headmaster

      Re: Uh, oh. Enemy du jour detected, closing fast!

      Also, Samantha Powers bleeding publicly

      Better get out the first aid kit then

      1. James 51

        Re: Uh, oh. Enemy du jour detected, closing fast!

        I was skimming through the comments and read that as 'Better get out the first aid kitten then'.

        1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

          Re: Uh, oh. Enemy du jour detected, closing fast!

          For "first aid kitten", click here

    2. Ali Um Bongo
      Mushroom

      Iran, North Korea. Can you blame them?

      I have no love whatsoever for the regimes in either Iran or North Korea. But, seriously, how can anyone blame them from trying to develop a nuclear defence?

      If I was the tin-pot dictator or mediaeval voodoo peddlar in charge of one of these countries and was looking around the world at what's been happening to the neighbours the US has decided it doesn't like the look of [HINT: Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria... ], I'd be cracking the whip across my nuclear scientists' backs as well, and ordering them to build me a nuclear deterrent as quick as they can.

      The really sad thing is that there are people so monumentally gullible that, when a US politician describes these activities as "sinister plots to attack the USA", rather than as frantic attempts to shore up your own defences before Uncle Sam decides to come a-calling and bringing 'regime change' they actually believe it.

      PS: Shame on El Reg's usually cynical journos for swallowing the 'official line' too.

      HINT 2: As well as regime mismanagement of the economy, the reason North Korea's people are starving might also have something to do with the fact that the US has forbidden any of its lackeys from trading with the country. It's another standard American tactic:

      **UNCLE SAM:** We don't like Country X, so we're going to impose crippling economic sanctions on them and also insist all our lickspittle 'friends' do too.

      [Time passes]

      **UNCLE SAM** Look at the state of Country X's economy. They can't even feed their own people!

      1. nilfs2
        Mushroom

        Re: Iran, North Korea. Can you blame them?

        @Ali Um Bongo

        Can't agree more; I wonder how many Reg's journalists have been in NK to confirm their arguments? Like most journalist, when it comes to politics, they just parrot whatever the big media corps are coming up with.

        Don't get me wrong, I consider The Reg a good source of tech news, but when it comes to politics, they just follow the stream.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Iran, North Korea. Can you blame them?

          If any particular person tells you they've been to NK, chances are they are lying. NK is one of the most closed countries on Earth; really the only people who ever cross the border with any frequency are Chinese. So when I read articles about what NK has been up to, those articles can come from one of only three possible sources. None of those is trustworthy when it comes to political subjects.

          1. Sweep

            Re: Iran, North Korea. Can you blame them?

            You can now go to North Korea as a tourist...just don't expect to see anything that the regime doesn't want you to see...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Re: Iran, North Korea. Can you blame them?

        Good reasoning, except that you don't see Zimbabwe/Sudan/Cuba/other autocracies around the world threatening to turn their southern neighbor's capital into a "sea of fire" or advertising and plastering images of a burning White House/Statue of Liberty all over the place.

        North Korea is no put-upon innocent that is only trying to defend itself from mean ol' Uncle Sam.

        1. Ali Um Bongo
          Facepalm

          Re: Iran, North Korea. Can you blame them?

          *"...North Korea is no put-upon innocent that is only trying to defend itself from mean ol' Uncle Sam..."*

          Where did I say, or even imply that they were?

          I thought the phrases: "I have no love whatsoever for the regimes in either Iran or North Korea..." and "If I was the tin-pot dictator or mediaeval voodoo peddlar in charge of one of these countries..." in my original post made that clear.

          The point I was trying to make was that ***from their point of view*** [emphasis] they are being threatened by a country which has a track record as long as your arm of both crippling the economies of and intervening militarily in, countries whose regimes they don't approve of.

          *"...you don't see Zimbabwe/Sudan/Cuba/other autocracies ... threatening to turn their southern neighbor's capital into a "sea of fire" or advertising and plastering images of a burning White House/Statue of Liberty all over the place..."*

          I'm sure, if those countries felt threatened by outside invasion, this is exactly what they would be doing. As far as political sophistiction goes, this is school playground stuff:

          "I'm going to kick your head in!"

          "Well, if you try it I'm going to smash your face in!"

          Like Saddam's "Mother of All Battles" nonsense, it is empty rhetoric for domestic consumption and intended to make 'Mr. T.P. Dictator' seem strong at home. It is about as close to having any connection to reality as labels like "Operation Enduring Freedom" are, when the US attaches them to its swathe of destruction in the Middle East.

          It's all a question of perspective and, unfortunately, far too few people in the West ever bother to try and see it from the other guy's point of view, or question the lines spun by those in the Whitehouse, 10 Downing Street et al. Does anyone wih an ounce of critical thinking ability really believe North Korea [or Iran] are plotting to launch a war against the USA?

          Presumably these people also think "Team America: World Police" was a documentary.

          [I see your fail and raise you a Fuck, yeah!]

      3. Mark Dempster

        Re: Iran, North Korea. Can you blame them?

        I completely agree. I'm also curious as to what sanctions we can impose on a nation that we have virtually no contact with?

        1. Tom 7

          Re: Iran, North Korea. Can you blame them?

          In 'Animal House' Dean Wormer put them under Double Secret Probation. I guess the UN could do that to NK.

          The tactics the west use are not meant to influence North Korea - they are meant to placate the Daily Mail readers or equivalent at home. If they lead to nuclear war they might think 'You see! I told you so' just before they vaporise.

    3. phuzz Silver badge
      Flame

      Re: Uh, oh. Enemy du jour detected, closing fast!

      Sputnik was arguably a test of the R7 ICBM launcher, but the Soviets had already successfully tested it with a dummy warhead two months before, Sputnik was a test to see if they could use it to launch a satellite. For starters Sputnik weighed less than a nuke and had no re-entry options.

      As it turns out, the R7 was a pretty terrible ICBM (big, slow to prepare, un-storable propellants etc), but it's a great space launcher (over 1600 successful launches and still going strong).

  2. wolfetone Silver badge

    No Oil In North Korea

    So therefore the USA can't be bothered to invade them.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: No Oil In North Korea

      But there's cabbages and turtle farms....

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No Oil In North Korea

        Don't laugh...it's a really fast moving market.

      2. td0s

        Re: No Oil In North Korea

        don't forget Unicorns!

    2. Neoc

      Re: No Oil In North Korea

      @Wolfetone:

      Nope, the main reason the USA (and the UN) is dragging their feet is NK's old pal China.

      1. wolfetone Silver badge

        Re: No Oil In North Korea

        @Neoc:

        "Nope, the main reason the USA (and the UN) is dragging their feet is NK's old pal China."

        I'm afraid that just isn't true. China are just as pissed off with NK as the rest of the world is at the moment. The simple matter is it isn't financially viable for the USA to go in to NK and blow the place up.

  3. Rich 11

    National Insecurity

    Over the weekend, during a Republican Party debate, candidate Ted Cruz gained headlines and incredulity in equal measure by saying Norks is preparing to attack America with an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon.

    I'm sure he'd be only too happy to back up his claims by publishing his evidence.

    OK, I won't hold my breath. It's not like he has evidence for anything else he claims to believe.

    1. Wade Burchette

      Re: National Insecurity

      "It's not like he has evidence for anything else he claims to believe."

      And that is different than the other candidates how?

      However, I will say this. Ted Cruz punked the Sierra Club bad in a senate meeting.

      1. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        Re: National Insecurity

        Ted Cruz punked the Sierra Club bad in a senate meeting.

        While Ted Cruz is quite a good debater, I fear you confuse sophistry with actual punking. He threw something out as an implied standard that he himself does not follow (e.g. link).

        1. Bernard M. Orwell

          Re: National Insecurity

          Ted Cruz is a nasty, small minded sophist and little else.

          The excellent "More or Less" programme on Radio 4 revealed, following an analysis, that less than 35% of Cruz's statements (made during this electoral campaign) have any validity. The vast majority of things this man says are outright lies designed to rile a crowd rather than shed light on political issues.

          He's another Trump, just a tad more savvy.

    2. kyza

      Re: National Insecurity

      Maybe he's conflating the plotlines to the games Homefront (US invasion by DPRK) and Modern Warfare 2 (SAS guy fires nuke to EMP US to fight off Rooski invasion facilitated by a crazy US General).

  4. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    More likely a loitering munition, not an ICBM "as we know it"

    If it was a conventional ballistic missile test I would have expected it to splash down somewhere in the south pacific as a "launch malfunction". It did not.

    My suspicion would be a loitering munitions. The biggest problem Norks have is that they have no submarines and their missiles are sticking out as a sore thumb on well known launch pads with no anti-missile defense. Their retaliation capability can be taken out in a matter of minutes by any major player without them being able to do anything about it. Single cruise missile launch off-shore and bye-bye threatening the entire world. A loitering nuke in space goes a very long way to reduce and remove this advantage. It does not need to communicate with ground too. All it needs is to accept its deorbit command and target coordinates.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Interesting idea, and strategically valid, I do believe, at the condition that the owner is the only entity that can give it the marching orders. But that is an issue for the spymasters to resolve.

      The real issue is that orbits degrade. If you want a loitering anything, you need to include the necessary fuel and exhaust ports, plus comms and telemetry to know how high it is, how fast the orbit is degrading and when and how long the burn needs to take to recover an optimal amount of time before the next burn.

      Given that there is currently no satellite in existence that can maintain orbital altitude on its own (even the expensive telecommunications satellites that are very valued by their owners and would certainly benefit from such technology), I'd venture that, if Western economies with their ready access to best-level physicists and boatloads of money do not include such tech, I highly doubt that the Norks have the brainpower, not to mention the resources, to do it on their lonesome.

      But hey, ingenuity knows no bounds, so I'm willing to be surprised.

      1. hplasm
        Coat

        " If you want a loitering anything, you need to include the necessary fuel and exhaust ports, ..."

        If it has exhaust ports, it is vulnerable. Say to a small squadron of x-wing fighters...

      2. Stoneshop
        Flame

        Kimchee power

        I highly doubt that the Norks have the brainpower, not to mention the resources, to do it on their lonesome.

        Orbit degrades, kimchee heats up due to air resistance, kimchee starts emitting fermentation gases, fermentation vessel lid opens (by divine intervention from the Eternal Leader, its exhaust is directed to correct the satellite's orbit), altitude is restored. At the same time, any nearby capitalist-imperialist running dog satellites are corroded beyond repair by the fumes.

      3. Voland's right hand Silver badge

        The real issue is that orbits degrade.

        The real issue is that orbits degrade.

        It is at 500 km up, that is relatively high so the drag is not very great. That is several years before it re-enters due to drag which is comparable to the shelf life of an early tech nuke.

        It is also in polar orbit so it is guaranteed to pass over every single "target" area within a day or two. It also does not need to correct its orbit regularly to be an effective weapon - there is bugger all difference between it re-entering aiming for a major capital of your choice from 500km or from 300km. Equally effective, the sole thing to differ are the burn parameters which need to be transmitted once by the ground station right before attack. Similarly, even if the ground station needs telemetry before that it, can ask for it once - before attack. The likely target areas are hundreds of miles across so it does not need to be precise either.

        With this orbit and this behavior, the odds are it is what the Norks are building. Even if they did not launch it this time, one of the next launches will be a live loitering nuke which will nicely nullify the fact that their launch pads are vulnerable and they have no subs and no bombers.

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: The real issue is that orbits degrade.

          Indeed there are rocket bodies from launcher final stages and dead satellites like Prospero X3 which have been orbiting for decades without any need for a boost burn.

          If they are going to be building a loiter weapon then they will at some stage need to test their re-entry and heat protection, otherwise their worst they can do is put a lot of radioactive waste into the upper atmosphere when the rest of the vehicle burns up.

          1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
            Mushroom

            Re: The real issue is that orbits degrade.

            "If they are going to be building a loiter weapon then they will at some stage need to test their re-entry and heat protection, otherwise their worst they can do is put a lot of radioactive waste into the upper atmosphere when the rest of the vehicle burns up."

            Or maybe they've been reading about the possibility of satelliteageddon and it's just a stonking big nailbomb with which to blackmail the rest of the world.

      4. imanidiot Silver badge

        I doubt the Norks have a targeting system capable of landing a payload with anything even closely resembling an accuracy beyond "somewhere down there on that big blue ball, hopefully on one of the solid bits".

        On top of that they don't seem to have any testing done on re-entry protection and guidance. Pretty imporant stuff if you need a payload to survive re-entry

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Not sure we have to worry about a loiter weapon just yet

      I'm willing to bet the US has the ability to tell whether there's a nuke onboard from the radiation. You can't effectively shield it in a space vehicle (nor would it be payload efficient to try but I'm not sure how close you'd need to sidle up to it to tell. Regardless, I imagine the US has one of its spy satellites tasked with a close enough fly by in the near future to check it out.

      Presumably they'd want to test this before they put a nuke in orbit - it wouldn't do much good as a threat if you didn't know whether it would survive re-entry or not. This might be the dry run, if so it will end up ditching itself in the ocean soon in its re-entry test.

      If the US finds it does contain a nuke, I very much doubt they'd make it public. They'd tell NATO, and South Korea and Japan of course (the most likely targets) but not us normal people. That makes this sort of thing perfect for political posturing like Ted Cruz's EMP weapon, because if asked to prove it the claim will be that the details are classified.

  5. Stoneshop
    Pint

    Thermostat nukular device

    "South Korea says the North is already preparing its nest nuclear test."

    So, they will be hacking these things and setting them all to several thousand degrees?

    (no coat please, it's much too warm already)

  6. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Coat

    Remember

    It's not nice to mock the fat kid in class.

    One day.....

  7. Tachikoma

    Is that super secret XS-1 space plane "research platform" still in orbit? sounds like it might have a course correction due.

    1. Andrew Newstead

      Unfortunately it doesn't have sufficient propellant to make the required orbital change. The space plane is in a roughly equatorial orbit and the Norks satellite in in a polar one. the space place would have to be launched into a polar orbit to intercept.

      1. Tachikoma
        Alien

        That's just what they want you to believe, I saw the new X-Files, the XS-1 is obviously a "replica alien vehicle" and uses zero point trans dimensional vortex wave engines that require no fuel!

  8. Gene Cash Silver badge
    Coat

    It was to watch the Super Bowl

    Apparently Grand Leader has no taste in sports:

    http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/North-Korea-s-new-satellite-flew-over-Super-Bowl-6814548.php

  9. Crisp
    Mushroom

    Did Ted Cruz watch Red Dawn and think it was real?

    Wolverines!

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Did Ted Cruz watch Red Dawn and think it was real?

      I think it was more like "Space Cowboys"...

  10. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    The satellite-being-silent bit puzzles me. What good is a test without getting any telemetry back?

    1. TheOtherHobbes

      It's either a super-stealth Bond villain mega-weapon - or the electronics (if there were any) failed on the way up.

      My guess is the latter.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Yeah, valves don't take multi G launches very well.

        1. IvyKing

          "Deke" Parsons figured out a why to keep tubes (valves) functioning while being launched from a 5 inch naval rifle in the 1940-41 era. The VT fuses were first used in combat around Guadalcanal about the end of 1942.

  11. jake Silver badge

    The entire concept of the NORKs ...

    ... being a world power is laughable.

    It's almost as daft as Humboldt County succeeding from the United States.

    The first time the NORKs actually attack anybody, the regime will die.

    EOF

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: The entire concept of the NORKs ...

      But they do know how to push everbody's button. Seems like their strategy is "If you can't beat 'em, annoy them."

      1. Ali Um Bongo
        Mushroom

        Re: The entire concept of the NORKs ...

        *"...But they do know how to push everbody's button. Seems like their strategy is "If you can't beat 'em, annoy them."..."*

        They don't annoy me. But then again, my *weltanschauung* isn't manufactured in Washington.

        1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

          Re: The entire concept of the NORKs ...

          @ Ali Um Bongo:

          I see your "Weltanschauung" and raise you a "Realpolitik mit Fingerspitzengefühl"...

          Monty Python - Henry Kissinger

    2. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: The entire concept of the NORKs ...

      The Norks have a pretty massive standing army. They might not be highly technologically advanced and they might not have the latest weaponry and tactics but if it DOES ever come to an armed conflict there will be MASSIVE casualties on all sides before the conflict is resolved. And lets not forget the US vastly underestimated the difficulties of fighting in the local terrain the last time they were out there playing soldier.

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like