S.Korea's Military Says Extracting Suspected Part Of N.Korea's Rocket From Water

SEOUL (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 31st May, 2023) The South Korean military was working to extract from the waters of the Yellow Sea a suspected part of a North Korean rocket that was expected to put a new military reconnaissance satellite into orbit, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday.

"Today, on May 31, around 8:05 a.m. (local time, 23:05 GMT on Tuesday), the South Korean military identified in the sea about 200 kilometers (124 miles) west of Eocheong Island presumably a part of what North Korea claims to be a 'carrier rocket' and is raising it," the military said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, North Korea's state-run Korean Central news Agency (KCNA) reported that Pyongyang's National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA) unsuccessfully launched the Malligyong-1 military reconnaissance satellite mounted on the Chollima-1 carrier rocket at 6:27 a.

m. local time. After the separation of the first stage, the engine of the second stage failed to ignite, causing the rocket to lose thrust and fall into the Yellow Sea, the report said. The NADA said it would take urgent scientific and technical measures to investigate and fix the issues in the carrier rocket and would carry out the next launch as soon as possible after various tests, the media reported.

A NADA spokesperson said the incident was believed to be caused by the lack of reliability and stability of the new engine system implemented in the Chollima-1 rocket and the instability of the fuel used, adding that scientists, engineers, and experts were taking concrete actions to find out the cause of the incident, KCNA reported.