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Comment by Alupis | Hacker News Reader

A guess would be to avoid Japanese airspace, who promised to shoot down anything flying overhead. That assumes this rocket was actually intended to reach orbit and deposit a real satellite.

It seems very ambitious to try to park a satellite in orbit on your very first orbital rocket. Unless I'm missing something?

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They put their first satellite in orbit in 2012 confirmed by NORAD. This is not the first launch of a satellite, only a "spy satellite."

Honestly, feels like a concerted media effort to stoke panic about North Korea. Japan and South Korea acted like they didn't know was happening publicly (alarms etc) despite being informed of the launch publicly days before as reported in the media.

> Japan and South Korea acted like they didn't know was happening publicly (alarms etc) despite being informed of the launch publicly days before as reported in the media.

They may have known it was happening, but once the launch malfunctioned, they didn't know where it was going.

And I don't think either side trusts the other when they say "we're launching a rocket near you but not at you".

Not to mention, they have to trust that they're actually telling the truth because it's basically an ICBM with a satellite as a payload (instead of an explosive weapon). Heck, it could still be both. Since it's a hostile party launching it, they have to treat it as if it's a weapon before it even launches (such as warning they'll shoot it down if it's in their airspace).

They've gotten a couple sats to orbit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unha

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