Failure to Launch

Jeffrey Lewis 0:06

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:22

And I am Aaron Stein, Chief Content Officer over at War on the Rocks. Jeffrey, it's been a while. You've been all over the world and I've been in my house.

Jeffrey 0:32

I have certainly been all over Japan. I just spent 10 days in Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo.

Aaron 0:44

The last time the listeners heard from you, you were in the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore. So did you come home and then go back out?

Jeffrey 0:51

Yes, that is exactly what I did. I had tried to make it all one trip, but I wasn't able to pull that off. So I went there. I came back. I went there. I came back. And I still have to go to the roundtable on disarmament that the governor of Hiroshima Prefecture is putting together in late July.

So I got to go back there again.

Aaron 1:15

I think this is all a secret ploy for you to get more miles so you get the free business class upgrade.

Jeffrey 1:22

I am definitely going to hit 1K, and then I still got to go to India. So, yeah. Yeah, there'll be three trips to Japan, one to Singapore, and one to India in calendar year 2023. What the f*** am I doing?

Aaron 1:40

You're moving and shaking. When you were in Japan, was that when the NORCs actually fired off their failed satellite launch? Or was that when you were in Singapore or back in the U.S.?

Jeffrey 1:51

That is a great question. I believe the failed satellite launch was before I went to Singapore because I seem to recall on the flight to Singapore, which went through Japan, taking photographs of the various bits of news coverage because I was sort of amused at how serious it was. We should actually check when the hell was the failed Chollima-1 satellite launch.

Yeah, May 31st. Yeah. So that was exactly when I was on my way to Singapore.

Aaron 2:26

My memory is correct. Who knew? I remember you in one of the various places we hang out virtually posting photos. I think of your little airplane screen. Yeah, it was weird. Or maybe not so little if you're in the 1K club.

Jeffrey 2:41

I did fly business class. And so it was a larger screen with a 180 degree lay down bed that I made good use of.

Aaron 2:48

Excellent. Well, I think in the ensuing months – well, let's talk about it this way. When you went to Japan in the follow-up visits, you were talking about Korea and proliferation issues, correct?

Jeffrey 3:01

Yeah, that's right. I had a talk that I gave at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. And then I went up to Tokyo and met with a few people, including Tomo Inoue at Kyoto News, who has published a – Japanese language only book on North Korea's programs, which he gave me a copy of and I'm cited in and I'm desperate now for a grad student to read.

I think it's going to be a, it's going to be a classic, but yeah, I was there to talk Korea.

Aaron 3:35

What were your impressions on how the Japanese are, are, are taking this? Like before we talk about the wreckage and the debris and all that, and all that fun stuff. Yeah.

Jeffrey 3:43

Yeah, I didn't do any government meetings. I just saw people I already knew, and so I would say that people were taking it more or less the way I expected, which is to say that these are my friends and people I know, and they're sort of maybe fundamentally reconciled to it. I gave a lecture on stability and instability on the Korean Peninsula, and there were two commentators, and...

One of them was a person who was affiliated with the academic defense community in Japan. He's not as enthusiastic as I am about – Learning to love the North Korean bomb. But at the same time, I don't find people put up much of an argument anymore. You know, it's like, well, we could never really admit that. But they don't really, there's not, their heart doesn't seem to be in it.

I think everybody knows at this point that, you know, Kim's going to Kim.

Aaron 4:49

Yeah, Kim keeps on Kimming. And I think one of the interesting things about the satellite launch is that He recognized and blamed somebody for failure because it did go kablooey. And we can talk about the kablooey and why we think it went kablooey and the efforts to recover it. But he did basically say this was a failure and he called somebody out for it.

Jeffrey 5:10

Yeah. So there was a meeting of the Workers' Party of Korea Central Committee. And I mean, the language that they released to the press is, you know, pretty – The announcement described the failure of the military reconnaissance satellite launch as a serious shortcoming. And the account that the North Koreans released said the report bitterly criticized the officials who irresponsibly conducted the preparations for satellite launch and set forth the militant task for officials and scientists in the relevant field and To make a thorough analysis of the cause and lesson of the recent failure, successfully launch the military reconnaissance satellite in a short span of time, and thus make a shortcut to improving the capabilities of the Korean People's Army reconnaissance intelligence.

So, you know, that's a... That's a you fucked up and you better fix it. So we'll see if we'll see if the North Koreans when the North Koreans try again and and if it works, if there are big sweaty bear hugs for everybody involved. It'll also be interesting to see if we see the same humans. Or if certain people drop off the roster of people who get those big sweaty Kim Jong-un bear hugs.

Aaron 6:40

I was going to say either drop off the roster or drop off the planet in terms of their fidelity on life. So the question I have here is, with the developments they've had with their ICBM force, this feels like less of a big deal, I think. Not that it blew up, but in that these programs have, I don't want to say diverged a little bit, but the overlapping technologies may be a little bit different in terms of the technological pathways they're pursuing for these two different capabilities.

Jeffrey 7:15

Well, so I don't know is the actual answer. I mean, the first stage of this rocket does appear to use the same engine as their ICBMs, but that stage worked fine, as best we can tell. What seems to have happened is that the second stage didn't burn. And that raises all kinds of questions about just what the F, the second stage, was.

We can talk about the debris in a minute. Yeah, so when the South Koreans fished out the debris, they covered the back end so that we couldn't see the engine of the second stage. And so we don't really know what the engine for the second stage is. We don't know what the upper stage engine for the Hwasong-17 is.

And... At least at CNS, we have a kind of working hypothesis that the North Koreans are developing new upper stage engines, possibly based on Ukrainian designs. And so that would maybe explain why it failed. But like, is that also one they use in the Hwasong-17? Like, I just, I don't know.

Aaron 8:20

Yeah. I mean, I think the interesting part here too is that Besides that, it's proving a little bit difficult, I think, for people who actually do this to model because the dimensions are actually hard to get from it. There's been varying different reports about the diameter of it.

Jeffrey 8:36

Yeah, that was really strange. So I did my best to work this out. I am pretty sure the diameter of the first stage is 2.8 meters because that's what Yonhap reported. And Yonhap is state media. That's what Chosun Ilbo reported. And this is all coming from the ROK Joint Chiefs. And that's what the graphic that the... South Koreans used to brief set.

I actually got a close-up image of it. You can see this guy has a little pointer, and you can see that it's 2.8 meters. So I think it is 2.8 meters. The... The part that was challenging about that was that initially the ROK JCS was saying it was 2.5 meters. And weirdly, the Korea Herald has it like at 2.4, which I think is just somebody saying 8 feet and them kind of rounding it.

So we don't really know. But then we tried to settle it by I went and tried to measure the rocket stage. The debris using, you know, actually using Photoshop, it has a mensuration filter. But the image is so hard because it's so fish-eyed and weird. I was never able to get a good number. So, I mean, I'm using 2.8 for the first stage and 2.3 meters for the upper stages.

But, you know, that I think is a matter of still some debate.

Aaron 10:20

Yeah, no, I mean, that certainly seems to be the case. And so... I mean, I guess that just raises the questions about what it is, which is the previous answer you were giving, is that that upper stage isn't quite clear yet. And I think the South Koreans probably want to keep it that way if they're covering it.

Jeffrey 10:37

Yeah. So, I mean, one of the hypotheses we have is when we saw the Hwasong-17, we noticed that on the Hwasong-17 upper stage, there was roll control, right? These little thrusters that control how the upper stage spins or rolls, right? And the only reason you would need role control thrusters is if you only had a single nozzle.

Cause if you have two nozzles, you can do role control just by pivoting the nozzles against one another. So we inferred from the existence of role, role control by we, I mean, Michael Dutzman is the one who noticed it. That they probably, for the Hwasong-17, had a single chamber and nozzle engine. And that's kind of interesting because that would imply a new upper stage engine.

And then the question is like, well, what would a new upper stage engine look like? And obviously a candidate is the upper stage engine that the Ukrainians use on the Cyclone. Because after all, the first stage engine from the Cyclone is the RD-250 that the North Koreans are now producing. Right. And the thing about that engine is it burns for a really long time, like several minutes, and can stop and restart.

And that really got our attention because if you remember back in December 2019, North Korea did two engine tests at Sohae, and they kind of teased us about the second one. They said it lasted seven minutes. That's a really long time. Seven minutes is a really long time for a rocket engine. And so we have been kind of wondering if the, the I guess it's the RD-861 is this Ukrainian engine for the upper stage of the cyclone.

It has a really long burn time and can start and restop. We were wondering if that isn't what is on the second stage. And that would both explain why it didn't work, right? It's new. And so it's more likely to have problems. But also it would explain why the South Koreans went out of their way to cover it up because they maybe did not either feel like announcing that or they themselves didn't know right away what it was.

And so they wanted to give themselves a chance to figure it out before telling the world.

Aaron 13:12

Or maybe they won't tell the world. Or maybe we're just wrong.

Jeffrey 13:15

Maybe it's just a skud.

Aaron 13:17

Well, I mean, we've talked about sort of the North Korean efforts to copy Ukrainian designs before and how there's other aspects that we think, or at least you all think, have shown up in some of their missiles or rockets and engines and stuff like that.

Jeffrey 13:32

So it was Mike Elliman who pointed out that the... North Korean engine that they called the March 18th Revolution engine was the RD-250, which was an old Soviet design that Ukraine was still producing. And of course, there were the two North Koreans who actually got arrested in Ukraine trying to access classified information about space launchers at Yuzhnoye.

So it wouldn't at all be surprising if the North Koreans copied not just one technology from the Cyclone launcher, but tried to copy it all. So I think there's a really good chance that that's what the upper stage rocket engine is. And that's both why it didn't work and also why the South Koreans covered it up. There's one other detail, by the way, When the North Koreans listed the drop zones for the launch, it did this kind of weird dogleg, like the first stage and the fairing fell in a straight line, but then the second stage was supposed to fall.

It was going to do a dogleg, basically. And that led to all these really interesting questions about whether... North Korea intended to either first put the reconnaissance satellite into an orbit that was not sun-synchronous, which would have been the simplest thing. That would have been just like the straight line that they showed the second stage putting the satellite into orbit on.

Or they were going to put it in a sun-synchronous orbit, which is what you would expect for a reconnaissance satellite. And that meant that it was either going to have to do a complicated maneuver, or it would have to have a second stage you could turn on and off. Which would be the RD 861. And so we had this kind of debate before the launch based on the weird drop zones that raised the question of, do they intend to put this in a sun-synchronous orbit?

And if they do, do they need to be using a restartable engine given the drop zones that they showed us? And the answer is like, maybe, right? They don't have to, but that would be kind of the simplest way to do it. So there's all this kind of Smoke. Yeah, smoke. Circumstantial evidence that something about that upper stage is real interesting, whether it's the drop zones or the South Koreans covering it or the North Koreans bragging about things taking seven minutes long or the fact that the Hwasong-17 has roll control.

All of that leads us to think that this upper stage engine is going to be really effing interesting when they finally rip off that little black burka and let us see the goddamn thing.

Aaron 16:36

Black burger. That's good. That's the, that's why people tune into the show. Do you want to talk about the the South Korean effort, efforts to salvage it? Because they claim to have the satellite, and my guess is that, like, the other thing is that we're going to have American microprocessors in there. You know, just the sort of like proliferation of little microchips is going to continue in North Korea, but maybe I'm wrong about that. But.

Jeffrey 16:59

Yeah. So, I mean, I did this research a couple of years ago when they fished out the debris from the Gwangmyeong Song in 2016. Back then, the South Koreans went out and recovered the debris and they announced the ship. That had been involved in recovering the debris and that ship had been involved in some other exercises. And that was the first point at which I learned of the existence of the ROK Navy's ship salvage unit, which is this dive team.

Among other things that they basically go use for all kinds of operations, but among other things, fishing out fishing out debris. And this time I think they just flat out said it was the ship salvage unit. I think there is even like a picture of a, of like a little Zodiac boat with SSU on it. So yeah, I mean, they've got They've, they've got a look. They've gotten like a little bit of practice at this. although interestingly, did you see that the, the first pictures they released were from the stage when it was floating? Yes, but then it sank, and then they had to like go back and then get it. Which I think it sank because it didn't, because the upper stage was filled with fuel and didn't burn, would be my guess. Yeah, that may, I mean, that would make sense. That would make it.

Aaron 18:31

I mean, that would obviously affect its buoyancy if it was still so heavy.

Jeffrey 18:35

Yeah. I mean, it may also be that it was empty and maybe when it – but then maybe it filled with water again or something. I don't know.

Aaron 18:43

Yeah. I mean, for us on the East Coast, filling with water is what we've been dealing with for the past couple of days because we have thunderstorms like you wouldn't believe.

Jeffrey 18:49

Yeah, but basically it sank and then they had to go back and they eventually did get it out. It's a big one.

Aaron 18:57

Yeah. And I also don't think Kim Jong-un's shocker is being entirely forthright in his statement. I don't think that they just pulled a fast one here and that they just fired this one off without him really knowing. What do you think about that? That doesn't seem reasonable to me.

Jeffrey 19:12

No, I think the reference to the hasty launch preparations is just somebody's got to be blamed. And the explanation for the blaming is you were careless and in too much of a rush. But Yeah, no. My guess is the person probably or the group probably weren't in a rush. It's just they failed and now pressure needs to be applied to them.

Aaron 19:35

As I said, maybe they'll end up at the bottom of the sea. They'll ride the ride.

Jeffrey 19:39

Yeah, that's right. That's right. I mean, it would be kind of great to be the North Korean guy who delivers the threats. It's like, get up. I got to tell you, if this doesn't work. Are okay. Ship salvage unit is going to be fishing you out of the, out of the Yellow Sea. Okay, that's, that's, that's what's going to happen here. And nobody's getting you while it's floating, or, or maybe you're like, I, I gotta tell you, with the concrete shoes we're gonna put on you, if this launch doesn't work, ship salvage unit's not gonna be able to get you off the bottom of the ocean. Okay, do you understand.

Aaron 20:19

Or you are the satellite, my friend. You'll either be in orbit or you'll be at the bottom of the sea. But I guess final question here is this reconnaissance satellite, I don't think it's going to be testing the outer bounds of what's possible in terms of open source available imagery or the type of capabilities. This is purely, right, on terms of the satellite for prestige, right?

Jeffrey 20:49

Yeah, I mean, I think obviously they're going to eventually learn how to do it. So I mean, I, I think that their expectation is that future satellites will be better. But yeah, I was not expecting the world's most impressive imaging satellite. Actually, I was at the Planet user conference earlier this year, one of my many, many trips on my route to One Katom, and.

Will Marshall, the CEO of Planet, and I did a joint interview together with some South Korean journalists. And it was the strangest interview because they kept asking Will about whether North Korea's imaging capability would pose a competitive threat to Planet. And Will is trying to be nice. It's just like, come on, man.

Aaron 21:45

Well, I mean, maybe they'll, I don't know, maybe, who knows, maybe there'll be some sort of commerce activity where they'll try and sell it. One never knows with these people.

Jeffrey 21:56

I mean, I think eventually, you know, the North Koreans will get good at this. And then just like I think the Iranians will eventually get good at it, but the Iranians are not yet good at it. And so I just wouldn't expect, I wouldn't expect North Korea's capability to be any better than Iran's. And it, you know, it's not just about Having a fancy camera.

There's a lot of stuff in terms of imaging from space that's unique to the space environment. There's both making sure you can orient and hold your focus on the ground so that you don't get a bunch of motion blur. And I think people don't understand that the atmosphere is not perfectly transparent. And so imaging in different color bands is... You're creating an image that looks like true color but isn't actually true color.

And so there's just a lot of issues involving color control and calibration that you really need to do to make gorgeous pictures. So I just think that... You know, this was a learning step for the North Koreans. And yeah, I mean, I don't know.

Aaron 23:12

If that satellite, I can't imagine that satellite is in one piece. I mean, that must have hit the water hard. Those things are fragile.

Jeffrey 23:19

So I think they talked about how there were like 160 pieces of debris. So I'm guessing they're fishing up little bits and pieces.

Aaron 23:28

Yeah. We'll put it in the museum next to the Chinese spy balloon.

Jeffrey 23:35

Can we, I would love, I mean, I would love for there just to be like a giant hanger of like Jeffrey wants to play with.

Aaron 23:43

They did this for the Iranian weapons during the Trump administration. Like we can do this for other stuff.

Jeffrey 23:51

I told you I got to see the scud at DIA.

Aaron 23:54

You did. Yeah. It was amazing. It's like the petting zoo. You know, like all this Soviet-era equipment we have laying around and we go show people it, you know, if they're in the military. It's like, let's do this for Arms Control Wonk Patreon subscribers. Oh, my God. It's a perk. Did we cover everything? Did we hit it?

Jeffrey 24:14

I think so. I think so. I mean, you know, the big takeaway for me is that North Korea made official statements about how annoyed they were. With the failure of the satellite. So this is clearly something they're going to try again. Yeah. And this question of what will the debris tell us about how far along they are?

And, you know, we just don't have a lot of answers to that yet. But usually we learn. I guess one thing I would say is a couple of years ago, the South Koreans actually published the report on the debris they recovered. And Union of Concerned Scientists translated it. So hopefully we'll get the same thing here. We'll get another Korean language report that we can translate, which usually has all kinds of helpful information like dimensions and all the foreign components inside the thing.

Aaron 25:09

So it should be good times. It should be good times. Well, with that, thanks, everybody, for listening. If you want to join the Slack channel where it's been active, it's the coolest place. On the internet, it's patreon.com slash acwpodcast. $3 if you're a student, $5 if you're not. Gain access to the place where the conversations are happening all the time.

And you can get cited in the Washington Post and The Economist because that's just how cool they are. Patreon.com slash acwpodcast. With that, thanks everybody for listening.