38 North:
On May 8, KCNA carried a typically vituperative essay by North Korea’s national space authority stating that “No matter who dares grumble and no matter how all hostile forces challenge the launch, satellites of Juche Korea will soar into the space one after another at the time and place designated and decided by the supreme leadership of the Korean revolution.”
The new statement follows extensive coverage in recent months of North Korea’s space ambitions. On May 4, North Korean state media showed Kim Jong Un visiting “the newly-built General Satellite Control Centre of the National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA).” The new center looks like something out of the Jetson’s but with a monumental oil painting of Kim Jong Il contemplating a rocket dominating the entrance to remind you this is still North Korea.
The statement is the latest in a series of stories that highlight the role that space technology plays in North Korea’s economic development and national defense. The visit by Kim to see this “splendid edifice” is perhaps more significant. The new control center shows in a dramatic way what the statement says in words: North Korea’s space ambitions are real, however incongruous they may appear against the backdrop of the country’s poverty and political repression.Kim Jong Un at the new Command and Control Center in Pyongyang.
Construction of the new facility—located near the headquarters of North Korea’s National Defense Commission (NDC) in Pyongyang—began in 2014.[1] Images from the interior show that the building remains to be outfitted with computer terminals, wall displays and other equipment necessary for a functional satellite control center. But Kim Jong Un’s early trip to the site was not unusual. He often visits important state projects during their final stages of construction, leaving ribbon-cutting and other mundane opening ceremonies to lower level functionaries
The New Satellite Control Center is expected to replace an older facility located in northwest Pyongyang. North Korea permitted foreign journalists and space experts to visit that control center in April 2012 for the (ultimately failed) rocket launch that was to celebrate the centenary of the late Kim Il Sung’s birth. Kim Jong Un observed the successful December 2012 Unha launch from the same location, although the interior was radically changed in the intervening months prompting outsiders, including myself, to wonder whether it was even the same room. Ultimately, measurements of the room and other information suggested that the satellite control center had been significantly modernized between April and December.[2]
These developments follow a steady stream of North Korean statements about their space ambitions. The DPRK has long described its development of long-range missiles in terms of ambitions for civil space development. In 2011, the North published a White Paper with the title Space Is Common Wealth of Humankind that declared “No one can check the trend of the times toward the exploration of space for prosperity common to humankind and peaceful purposes.” That is certainly what Kim Jong Il told Madeline Albright in 2000.
North Korea acceded to the Outer Space Treaty and the UN Registration Convention in advance of its 2009 rocket launch. Subsequently, Pyongyang emphasized the peaceful use of outer space preceding the satellite launch in 2012 intended to mark the centenary of Kim Il Sung’s birth. And North Korean officials have been adamant in private Track II meetings that Pyongyang plans a significant number of space launches in the coming years.
One of the more interesting developments in the past few years was the DPRK announcement in March 2014 that it had created a National Aerospace Development Administration that serves as the “central guidance institution organizing all the space development projects,” apparently replacing the Korean Committee of Space Technology. While the logo drew widespread derision for its similarity to the NASA “meatball” (more) and Spanish-speakers noted that “nada” meant “nothing,” North Korea clearly intends the new entity to indicate the seriousness of its purpose. KCNA also carried two stories about a seminar on space technology held at Kim Il Sung University in December 2014, sponsored in part by NADA. The new satellite control center is explicitly linked to the establishment of NADA and its museum contains a display showcasing the administration…
