North Korea attempted to launch what was described in state media as a Malligyong-1 reconnaissance satellite on 23 August at around 1850 GMT. The mission was apparently a do-over of an unsuccessful launch in May but turned out to be an unfortunate moment of déjà vu for the country instead, as it too failed.
A Chollima-1 rocket lifted off from the Sohae Launching Ground, North Korea, and was supposedly carrying a similar, or replica, satellite to the unit lost in the previous attempt. Reports from North Korea blame “an error in the emergency blasting system during the third-stage flight” for the launch failure, suggesting an anomaly with the rocket’s flight termination system destroyed the rocket and satellite.
North Korea is reportedly planning a third attempt as soon as October “after thoroughly probing” the reason behind this latest failure.
