Pyongyang, November 22 (KCNA) – The National Aerospace Technology Administration (NATA) of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea successfully launched the new-type carrier rocket “Chollima-1” loaded with the reconnaissance satellite “Malligyong-1” at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground in Cholsan County, North Phyongan Province, at 22:42:28 on November 21, Juche 112 (2023).
The carrier rocket “Chollima-1” flew normally along the preset flight track and accurately put the reconnaissance satellite “Malligyong-1” on its orbit at 22:54:13, 705s after the launch.
The launch of reconnaissance satellite is a legitimate right of the DPRK for strengthening its self-defensive capabilities and it will make a significant contribution to definitely ramping up the war preparedness of the armed forces of the Republic in conformity with the security environment created in and around the country owing to the enemies’ dangerous military moves.
Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the DPRK, oversaw the launch on the spot.
He was accompanied by Kim Jong Sik, vice department director of the WPK Central Committee, and Jang Chang Ha, general director of the DPRK General Missile Bureau.
The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un oversaw the launch and warmly congratulated all the cadres, scientists and technicians of the NATA and relevant institutions on having made a great contribution to enhancing the Republic’s war deterrent and most correctly and excellently implementing the resolution of the Eighth Congress of the WPK.
The NATA is to present to the 9th Plenary Meeting of the 8th WPK Central Committee a plan for continuing to secure the capability to reconnoiter the south Korean region and the region of operational interest of the DPRK armed forces by additionally launching several reconnaissance satellites in a short span of time. -0-
http://kcna.kp/en/article/q/1eb1892a9d329f7cd348008b6bd315bd.kcmsf
mirror https://kcnawatch.org/newstream/1700611622-680414227/dprk-natas-report-on-successful-launch-of-reconnaissance-satellite/
KCNA kp is a news site controlled by the DPRK government. You can see more photos if you click on the photo button in the top right corner.
In fairness to the engineers and technicians at SpaceX who actually do the real work there (unlike the asshole gloryhound at the top), that prototype Starship flight was actually a big success from a testing perspective. Unlike the first Starship test flight which broke up early into flight, the first stage (“booster”) ascent was a complete success. The launch pad survived with barely any damage (possibly only cosmetic damage), and all 33 engines on the booster stayed operational right up to stage separation unlike the first test where several failed. So far it looks like the booster did its post-stage-separation turn faster than expected, leading to sloshing of propellant which in turn caused engines to fail. That turn is needed for the booster to return to the launch site for re-launch.
The second stage (“starship”) also had all its engines fire properly, almost to the very end of its planned burn. There seems to have been an oxygen leak that happened due to the highly experimental stage separation method (called hot-staging). That leak meant that the starship wouldn’t have made it to its planned splashdown point off Hawaii.
Both booster and starship are equipped with automatic self-destructs called AFTS, or “autonomous flight termination system”. In these test flights they’re programmed to automatically blow up their vehicles if they’re going off-course, to prevent them from landing in areas that weren’t empty ocean. The data they gathered will be invaluable for the third test flight. They’ve already got 3 more ship/booster sets ready to fly once they get test launch licenses from the FAA.
It should be noted that the problems on this flight stemmed from unexpected issues in reusability techniques and hardware. SpaceX now has a rocket that, if launched in a disposable mode like every non-SpaceX orbital rocket ever built, has twice the cargo capability of the legendary Saturn V that put US astronauts on the Moon. And because it’s using mass-production techniques, it probably costs them no more than a few tens of millions USD per launch.
That is a charitable read, I try to be fair to the engineers involved as it is real work, but honestly the whole endeavor is rotten from the top.
I saw two distinct failure modes from the last launch, in two different subsystems, where previously the rocket failed pretty clearly from eating its own concrete backwash.
They claim the booster was intentionally self-destructed, but from looking at the timeline of events there was no reason to intentionally self destruct It was over open ocean and appeared to come apart under its own forces, rather than intentionally.
The starship engines were displayed as fully ignited, but they also didn’t provide a lot of video to corroborate that, so it’s taking their word. I also saw some footage from a second source which seemed to indicate that the starship was actually tumbling through the air at that point, leaving a wake of unignited fuel, again while indicating fully functional engines.
To me that’s actually more concerning than the first launch, where it could have just been physical damage to the booster which lead to the failure to separate and the total loss. In this one two different sections failed in different ways, and diffently from the first.
‘Hot staging’ is not ‘highly experimental’. It is the standard for Soyuz rockets and has been in common use since the 60’s. Difficult to call a practice like that experimental if there are over 1000 case studies to run from.
That said, Starship was designed with cold-staging in mind, and I’m not a rocket scientist or aerospace engineer, but to my general knowledge and experience it is not a great sign when you are making a huge thermo-dynamics staging change like that after most of your parts are already designed. The amount of time and energy that will have to be made in order to make sure every part that is possibly going to be affected is changed properly is massive.
I’d say it’s almost more challenging than designing from the ground up. Not impossible, but the sheer changes in engineering involved has to be worse than any video game crunch. If they actually pull this off, I’ll shut my mouth, but it would be a testament to an extremely detail-oriented engineering team, something that is not really in Musk or SpaceX’s ‘move fast and break things’ mantra.