Kwangmyŏngsŏng program

Kwangmyŏngsŏng program
Hangul	광명성
Hanja	光明星
Revised Romanization	Gwang Myeong-seong
McCune–Reischauer	Kwangmyŏngsŏng
IPA	[ɡwaŋ.mjəŋ.səŋ]

The Kwangmyŏngsŏng programme is a class of experimental satellites developed by North Korea. The name Kwangmyŏngsŏng ("Bright Star" or "Brilliant Star" in Korean) is from a poem written by Kim Il-sung. The first class of satellites built by North Korea, the program started in the mid-1980s. There have been five launches so far, of which two have been successful.

According to North Korea Academy of Science's Academician Kwon Tong-hwa, the SLV was developed in the 1980s when late leader Kim Il-sung announced the decision to launch a North Korean satellite.

The decision to send a North Korean satellite was precipitated by the successful launching of South Korea's first satellite, Uribyol-1, on August 10, 1992 and its second satellite, Uribyol 2, on September 26, 1993, both by a European Ariane 4 SLV. In a late-1993 meeting of the Korean Workers' Party Central Committee, Kim Il-sung expressed his desire to quickly place a satellite into orbit, leading to the expansion of North Korea's nascent space program and the requirement for a space launch vehicle.

The official Korean Central News Agency announced on September 4, 1998, Juche 87, that a satellite called Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1 had been launched at 3:07 UTC on August 31 from a launch site in Musudan-ri, Hwadae-gun, North Hamgyong Province by a Paektusan-1 satellite launch vehicle (SLV). No objects were ever tracked in orbit from the launch, and outside North Korea it is considered to have been a failure.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command reported that the satellite failed to reach orbit, and burned up in the atmosphere. The failure is believed to have occurred during the third stage burn.

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