One of the stages of North Korea's satellite launch rocket exploded after separation on Tuesday, video captured by an South Korean astronomy observatory showed, in what some analysts said may have been deliberate destruction to prevent recovery.
  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    SEOUL, Nov 23 (Reuters) - One of the stages of North Korea’s satellite launch rocket exploded after separation on Tuesday, video captured by an South Korean astronomy observatory showed, in what some analysts said may have been deliberate destruction to prevent recovery.

    North Korea launched its first spy satellite into orbit on Tuesday, after two previous attempts this year ended with the rockets crashing during flight.

    “This time they appear to have detonated the first stage propellant in mid-air,” Byun Yong-Ik, an astronomy professor at Yonsei University, told Reuters.

    “This kind of measure was not seen in the previous launch attempts, and it could have been an effort to prevent South Korean and U.S. authorities from recovering the propellant as it is equipped with a new engine.”

    It’s not possible to tell for sure if it was intentional or an accident, but North Korea said it had used a self-destruct mechanism during its last launch in August as a safety measure after the rocket failed, Langbroek said.

    Russia denied any military cooperation, but President Vladimir Putin in September publicly promised to help North Korea build satellites.

    The original article contains 423 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 56%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!