North Korea rocket explodes during spy satellite launch, and meteor hunters caught it on camera: report - Space.com

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The first stage of a North Korean rocket apparently exploded Tuesday (Nov. 21) during a purported spy satellite launch, a new video suggests.

A camera at South Korea's Yonsei University, usually used for tracking meteors or shooting stars, showed the first stage of the North Korean Chollima-1 rocket appearing to erupt and spread debris, Reuters reported Friday (Nov. 24).

"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 (rocket), as it is equipped with a new engine."

The activity was classified as unusual by North Korean rocket experts in the report, given that countries typically allow rocket stages to fall naturally into Earth's atmosphere — absent the ability to land the first stage, like SpaceX or Blue Origin does. North Korea has reported an ability to self-destruct rockets on previous launches, too.

A North Korean rocket lifts off on a television screen at Seoul's Yongsan Railway Station on Nov. 21, 2023. (Image credit: Photo by Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The U.S. Space Force has cataloged an object in orbit matching the trajectory of the launch, suggesting the spy satellite is indeed in space, astronomer Jonathan McDowell posted Tuesday on X, formerly Twitter. McDowell, who is based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, also tracks worldwide space launches, landings and re-entries.

Following North Korea's claims of the successful spy satellite launch on Tuesday, senior U.S. officials and the White House condemned the activity; the American security community has said the technologies used for the rocket are similar to those for the nation's intercontinental ballistic missile program.

For example, officials with the White House released a statement saying the launch on Tuesday was "a brazen violation of multiple UN (United Nations) Security Council resolutions, raises tensions, and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region and beyond."

a group of men in suits talking in front of a horizontal rocket — In this pool photo distributed by Sputnik agency, Russia's President Vladimir Putin (center L) and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (center R) visit the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Amur region on Sept. 13, 2023. (Image credit: VLADIMIR SMIRNOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Previously, senior U.S. officials have also raised concerns of North Korea's closer ties with Russia in recent months, including a joint meeting of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in September concerning sharing spaceflight and rocket technologies. (North Korea denied Russia provided assistance for Tuesday's launch, however, according to media reports.)

Russia has been cut off from most international space activities since its unsanctioned invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, lessening opportunities for its space companies. North Korea, meanwhile, has been a communist state for 80 years. Its economy is controlled by the state and its citizens are said to lack basic food and services, according to Britannica.