* North Korean satellite? The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Choson Minjujuui In'min Konghwaguk, North Korea) launched a Taepo Dong 1 missile at 0307 UTC on Aug 31. North Korea now claims that a third stage on the missile placed a small satellite in orbit. US sources so far have reported the launching as a suborbital missile test, and have not tracked any satellite in orbit. However, it's possible that a small satellite could have been missed. The satellite is reportedly broadcasting Korean propaganda songs on 27 MHz. I'm provisionally assuming the Korean reports are correct despite the lack of confirmation from Space Command. Launch site is given as Musudan-ri, Hamgyong Pukdo Province. My research indicates this is Cape Musudan at 40.52N 129.45E. ("-ri" is a small administrative district). The claimed orbit is 218 x 6978 km x 41 deg. The Taepo Dong 1 (TD-1) reportedly consists of a Nodong 2 first stage with a Scud-class second stage. The third (orbital) stage is probably a small solid motor. No name has been given to the satellite in the North Korean announcements. The figures in the North Korean press release are inconsistent. They say that launch was at 86 degrees azimuth, and the first stage fell 253 km downrange at 40.85N 139.67E, the second stage 1646 km downrange at 40.22N 149.12E. The claim for the first stage is clearly wrong, it's much more than 253 km from N Korea and practically on the beach in Japan. I have two scenarios: (1) The only error is that the first stage impact longitude should be 129.67E, not 139.67E. Then the range to the second stage impact point is correct, and the path is 86 degrees measuring east from south. The first stage impact point is then just of Cape Musu-dan and the launch site is unrelated to the cape, being at 126.2E 41.0N near Manpojin right on the Chinese border. This seems really unlikely, since the Korean statement about the location of the launching site is so detailed. (2) The launch site is at Cape Musu-dan and the azimuth is 86 deg measuring east from north (the conventional way), and the ranges are correct but the latitudes and longitudes are all wrong. Then I derive a first stage impact point of 40.7N 133.0E, and a second stage impact point of 41.5N 152.1E. This seems much more likely, except that I can't explain why the Korean latitude and longitude figures would be so wrong. The Republic of Korea (Tae han Min'guk, South Korea) has not yet got a satellite launch vehicle of its own, although it has several satellites launched by other nations' rockets: Korean name English name Launch date Launcher KAIST (Korea Advanced Inst. of Sci. and Tech:) Uribyol-1 KITSAT-OSCAR-23 1992 Aug 10 Ariane V52 Uribyol-2 KITSAT-OSCAR-25 1993 Sep 26 Ariane V59 Korea Telecom: Mugunghwa 1 Koreasat 1 1995 Aug 5 Delta 228 Mugunghwa 2 Koreasat 2 1996 Jan 14 Delta 231 (Uribyol means 'our star'; Mugunghwa is the national flower of Korea, the Sharon's rose.) In addition, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) has a sounding rocket program using the single-stage solid fuel KSR-I sounding rocket and the KSR-II, which uses two stages each based on the KSR-I. There have been four launches to date from the Anhueng launch site in Ch'ungch'ong Namdo province, at 36.41N 126.10E. KSR-I-1 1993 Jun 4 Ozone, 39 km KSR-I-2 1993 Sep 1 Ozone, 49 km KSR-II-1 1997 Jul 9 Ozone/ionosphere/X-ray astron, 150 km? KSR-II-2 1998 Jun 11 Ozone/ionosphere/X-ray astron, 137 km