TOKYO/SEOUL: North Korea’s second attempt to launch a military reconnaissance satellite failed Thursday due to a problem during the third-stage flight of a rocket that carried it, state media reported.

The failure comes as Pyongyang had informed Tokyo of its plan to launch a satellite between Thursday and Wednesday. North Korea will “conduct the third reconnaissance satellite launch in October,” the Korean Central News Agency said.

The Japanese government said in a message via its J-Alert warning system that North Korea fired a missile that passed through the Pacific Ocean around 4 a.m. local time. South Korea’s military said that North Korea fired a “space launch vehicle” southward from the Tongchang-ri area in its northwest around 3:50 a.m.

KCNA said “the flights of the first and second stages of the rocket were normal, but the launch failed due to an error in the emergency blasting system during the third-stage flight.” North Korea’s first launch attempt on May 31 also failed.

At a press conference in Tokyo Thursday, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno condemned Pyongyang for using its ballistic missile technology in the launch. Any satellite launch by North Korea violates U.N. Security Council resolutions.

“Even if it’s a satellite launch, it’s a serious problem because it violates U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Matsuno said. Japan filed a strong protest with North Korea via embassies in Beijing.

Matsuno said the North Korean projectile was separated into several pieces and that one of them flew between the main island of Okinawa and Miyakojima Island before falling into the Pacific Ocean about 600 kilometers east of the Philippines.

All of the pieces are believed to have fallen outside of the areas that North Korea had announced in advance. No damage to ships has been confirmed.

The Japanese Self-Defense Forces has been ready to intercept a North Korean projectile if there is a risk that it will fall into Japanese territory. No interception was conducted this time.

JIJI Press