North Korea has Released Images of its Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile Test

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North Korea Attempted Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile on Saturday

North Korea on Saturday tested what appeared to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile in the Sea of Japan, the South Korean defence ministry said.

"North Korea launched a projectile which was believed to be a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) around 6:30 pm (0930 GMT) in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) near the northeastern port of Sinpo", a defence ministry spokesman said.

"We are keeping close tabs on the North Korean military and maintaining a full defence posture", he said.

The missile flew 30 kilometres (18 miles) but the launch "appeared to have failed," he added.

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North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un has Ordered More Nuclear Weapon Tests

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has ordered further nuclear tests, state media said Friday, as military tensions surge on the Korean peninsula with South Korean and US forces engaged in large-scale joint exercises condemned by Pyongyang.

Since the joint drills began Monday, the North has issued daily warnings and statements, talking up its nuclear strike capabilities and threatening to turn Seoul and Washington into “flames and ashes.”

Just days after he was photographed posing in front of what state media described as a miniaturised nuclear warhead, Kim said the weapon required further testing.

Overseeing a ballistic missile launch on Thursday, Kim ordered “more nuclear explosion tests to estimate the destructive power of the newly produced nuclear warheads,” the North’s official KCNA news agency said.

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REPORT: North Korea Just Lost a Submarine

Details remain scarce, but reports state that North Korea has lost one of its submarines. It is not clear what exactly the suspected state of the submarine is but North Korea is frantically searching for it. This event could not come at a worse time as tensions on Korean Peninsula are at an all time high.

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second source.

New Space Race #2

North Korea:

North Korea placed...something...in orbit.  It appears the satellite is tumbling and probably is unusable.  The US has stated the satellite orbit is stable, but the sat is NOT transmitting.  It appears the Norks have been able to stabilize the sat: its no longer tumbling.

Apparently the rocket that launched the satellite had twice the payload of the previous one.  This is, of course, a concern.

Russia:

The Russians have significant doubts about reusable rockets and will be retiring the Rockot.

Europe:

Luxembourg is getting into the asteroid mining race!  The country will be implementing a legal framework to do that same thing as the US Congress did to allow for mining offworld, will be investing in asteroid mining companies, and act as a tax haven for those companies (of course!).

Magna Parva has launched an 'in-space manufacturing' website.

The European Space Agency has released its roadmap for the future.

USA:

The White House released its proposed 2017 NASA budget.

NASA has released more details about the selection of the new cargo contracts to the ISS.

Congress wants a solid roadmap to get to Mars from NASA.

NASA's EM-1 Orion capsule has been delivered to Kennedy Space Flight Center.  And here.

Watch the EM-1 Orion being built.

NASA will be launching several cubesats into deep space and to the Moon on the first SLS launch.

The US Air Force is disputing why the United Launch Alliance refused to bid on the new GPS satellite launch and is quite angry.

The US Air Force is also going to spend over $1.2 billion over the next 5 years to replace the Russian engines in the Atlas V or develop a new rocket to effectively do the same thing.

Video of North Korea's Apparently Successful Satellite Launch

Some information is here.

The launch appears to have been successful, at least as far as putting something into orbit.

Video of North Korea's Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile Test

Some Updates on the North Korean Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile Program

Reports of a North Korean “ejection” test of the Bukkeukseong-1 (Polaris-1, KN-11) submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) on December 21, 2015, appear to be supported by new commercial satellite imagery of the Sinpo South Shipyard. This imagery also indicates that despite reports of a failed test in late November 2015 North Korea is continuing to actively pursue its SLBM development program.

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North Korea has Conducted Another Nuclear Test

Many, many different sites are reporting North Korea set off a new nuclear weapon in a test. 

The Norks are claiming they set off their first hydrogen bomb.  Take with a huge grain of salt.

South Korea is pretty mad.  The rest of the world is cautious.

North Korea Hints Developed Thermonuclear Bomb

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has suggested his nuclear-armed state has developed a hydrogen bomb, a move that would signal a major step forward in its nuclear weapons capabilities.

During a recent inspection tour of a historical military site, Kim mentioned that North Korea was already a "powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate self-reliant A-bomb and H-bomb to reliably defend its sovereignty", the North's official KCNA news agency said Thursday.

North Korea has already tested three atom bombs, which rely on nuclear fission.

A hydrogen, or thermonuclear device, uses fusion in a chain reaction that results in a far more powerful explosion.

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I think its doubtful and so do the experts.

North Korea's Submarine Missile Launch Test Caused Significant Damage

North Korea’s first submarine capable of firing missiles underwater suffered serious damage during a failed test launch last month, according to defense officials.

The Sinpo-class submarine attempted to launch North Korea’s KN-11 submarine-launched ballistic missile during a test Nov. 28 in the Sea of Japan, but officials said the missile failed to properly eject from its firing tube, causing damage to the submarine and its sail.

Details of the damage were not disclosed by officials familiar with intelligence reports of the test.

The assessment of damage to the submarine was based on debris analyzed by U.S. satellites and other technical intelligence means.

The failed test is considered a significant setback for the missile submarine program, the officials said.

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Another Sign North Korea is Trying to Develop a Nuclear Missile Submarine

North Korea is attempting to put nuclear weapons to sea, according to a longtime regime watcher.

Joseph Bermudez—an expert on North Korean weapons—believes the evidence is commercial satellite imagery showing a submarine with possibly two vertical launch tubes. The regime also appears to have constructed a test stand for launching sea-based ballistic missiles.

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Is North Korea Exporting Rare Earth Elements to China?

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President Park's Dreams of Korean Reunification

THIS seems an odd time for South Korea’s leaders to be talking up the prospects of reunification with their country’s evil twin. The economic gap between the rich south and dirt-poor north of the peninsula grows ever wider, implying mounting reabsorption costs for South Korea. And under its latest Kim-despot, the 30-ish, callow but ruthless Kim Jong Un, the North seems as hostile as ever, threatening new nuclear and missile tests and this week conducting live-fire exercises near the disputed maritime border. In response to Barack Obama’s visit to Seoul in late April an official “Peaceful Reunification” committee thundered that the North “must settle its final scores with the US through an all-out nuclear showdown”. And misogynistic bile was spat at the South’s president, Park Geun-hye: a “dirty comfort woman for the US and despicable prostitute selling off the nation”.

Yet Miss Park herself has been enthusing about the benefits of reunifying her country with this surly belligerent. In a press conference in January she picked “lay[ing] the foundation for unification on the Korean peninsula” as a “key task” for her government this year, and described the prospect as an economic “jackpot”. Then, in February, she announced the formation of a committee to prepare for reunification. In March she visited Germany, long watched by South Koreans as a model of national reintegration between thriving capitalists and struggling communists. In a speech in Dresden, where mass protests in 1989 helped topple the old East German regime, she set out three proposals to ease reunification: a “humanitarian” approach to issues such as reunions between millions of divided families; the building of cross-border infrastructure; and a plan to “reintegrate” the estranged peoples of the two countries through increased contact.

The North’s press dismissed this with predictable scorn, calling it the “daydream of a psychopath”. It did indeed seem fanciful for a number of reasons. The prospect that the North would countenance the proposals was negligible. The idea that reunification will bring an economic bonanza is, to put it mildly, controversial. Her colleagues can point to projections that a united Korea would by 2050 have a bigger economy than Japan or Germany. But that is to ignore the monumental short-term costs.

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