By 38 North / John Schilling
Observers tend to assume North Korea’s satellite launch vehicles are ICBMs in disguise. The truth is more complicated.
When the Soviet Union shocked the world and opened the Space Age on October 4, 1957, it was not a coincidence that its first satellite was launched into orbit on a modified R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). For many observers, that was the message of Sputnik — the rocket that did this can deliver hydrogen bombs to your cities. Nor was the message sent only once. The first 96 Soviet satellite launches were conducted using modified ICBMs, before Russian engineers bothered to design a rocket specifically for space missions. China still hasn’t bothered to field a space launch vehicle (SLV) that isn’t also a ballistic missile. On the other side of the world, every ICBM design the United States has ever put into service has been adapted to launch satellites at some time or another.
So when North Korea launched its first satellite on December 12, 2012, many observers thought the message was clear: the rocket that did this can deliver atomic bombs to your cities. And indeed it can. But is this really the purpose of the Unha-3? Is it an ICBM masquerading as an SLV, or an SLV that might someday be repurposed as a missile? There is precedent for both. Or, as Pyongyang claims, is the Unha-3 intended purely for peaceful space exploration?
There are sound technical reasons for using the same rocket in both applications. The fundamental requirement for an ICBM is to accelerate a hydrogen-bomb-sized payload to roughly 16,000 miles per hour, just above the atmosphere and aimed about 20 degrees above the horizon. To launch a satellite, you want to be a little bit higher, flying horizontally at 18,000 miles per hour. Until your satellites grow larger than your bombs, there is no reason to develop a second rocket, and no way for suspicious outsiders to know for sure what your real goals are.
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