South Korea has recovered the remains of a North Korean spy satellite and concluded that it has “no military utility,” Seoul’s military said on Wednesday, ending a 36-day operation to salvage the sunken remains of a failed North Korean space rocket launch in late May.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said the military lifted key parts of the rocket and satellite through the search and rescue operation in the Yellow Sea from May 31 to Wednesday and worked in conjunction with the United States to examine and analyze them.
“As a result of extensive analysis by South Korean and US experts, we have determined that it lacks military utility as a reconnaissance satellite,” the JCS stated in a press release.
The military capability assessment of the satellite wreckage gave rise to speculation that key camera components or other pieces of optical equipment installed on the satellite might have been recovered. According to observers, for a spy satellite to work at full capacity, it must have a submeter resolution camera.
The joint analysis of the allies drew a lot of attention, as it could shed light on the progress of the North’s development of long-range rockets and space programs and which countries have consciously or unknowingly aided its weapons development efforts.
The JCS did not detail the results of the analysis of the remains carried out by the allies, nor did it reveal photos of the recovered part of the satellite.
Last month, a Seoul official sounded cautious, suggesting that revealing all the information the military obtained from the salvage operation would rather benefit the North Korean military.
After the rocket fell into waters about 200 kilometers west of South Korea’s western island of Eocheong on May 31, the military carried out the recovery operation for more than a month, involving navy ships, maritime aircraft and deep divers.
The operation was made difficult by poor underwater visibility, swift currents, the heavy weight of the sunken wreckage, and other problems.
However, on June 15, an alleged part of the rocket’s second stage was removed. The raised piece was about 12 meters long and between 2 and 3 meters in diameter.
“Our military has demonstrated its extraordinary operational capability by recovering multiple parts of the rocket wreckage despite the unforgiving operating environment,” the JCS stated.
The North has claimed that the launch on May 31 involved the new Chollima-1 rocket, which carried the Malligyong-1 satellite. Shortly after the failed launch, the Northern state media acknowledged that the rocket crashed into the sea due to the abnormal start of the second-stage engine.
Seoul and Washington have long considered what the North claims to be a space rocket launch to be in violation of UN Security Council resolutions banning any launch using ballistic missile technology.
Yonhap News Agency
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