The recently-launched North Korean satellite was reported to have been "tumbling in orbit", however the satellite's orbit has reportedly stabilized:
A satellite launched by North Korea at the weekend has now stabilized in its orbit around the Earth in a step forward from a launch in 2012, a U.S. official and a second source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. However, the satellite is not believed to be transmitting any data back to Earth, the second source said.
The satellite was initially tumbling in orbit but has now stabilized, making it more successful than a launch in 2012, which failed to achieve a stable orbit, said the first source, a U.S. official who did not want to be identified by name. "It's in a stable orbit now. They got the tumbling under control," the official said.
Martin O'Donnell, a spokesman with the U.S. Strategic Command, said the satellite had been in roughly the same orbit since its launch on Sunday. "If we see a dramatic change in altitude that could mean (the orbit) is going to decay," he said.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has warned that North Korea will soon have enough plutonium to build additional nuclear weapons following a resumption of reactor operations back in September.
Previously:
North Korea Reportedly Detonates Hydrogen Bomb, Following Submarine Missile Test
The Hunt for Secret Nuclear Tests Digs Up Scientific Gold
Related Stories
North Korea Detonates First Hydrogen Bomb
The NYT reports that North Korea has announced it has detonated its first hydrogen bomb dramatically escalating the nuclear challenge from one of the world's most isolated and dangerous states. "This is the self-defensive measure we have to take to defend our right to live in the face of the nuclear threats and blackmail by the United States and to guarantee the security of the Korean Peninsula," said a female North Korean announcer on the state-run network. "With this hydrogen bomb test, we have joined the major nuclear powers." The North's announcement came about an hour after detection devices around the world had picked up a 5.1 seismic event that South Korea said was 30 miles from the Punggye-ri site where the North has conducted nuclear tests in the past.
"North Korea's fourth test — in the context of repeated statements by U.S., Chinese, and South Korean leaders — throws down the gauntlet to the international community to go beyond paper resolutions and find a way to impose real costs on North Korea for pursuing this course of action," says Scott Snyder, a Korea expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. According to the Times, the test is bound to figure in the American presidential campaign, where several candidates have already cited the North's nuclear experimentation as evidence of American weakness — though they have not prescribed alternative strategies for choking off the program. The United States did not develop its first thermonuclear weapons — commonly known as hydrogen bombs — until 1952, seven years after the first and only use of nuclear weapons in wartime.
The New York Times is reporting a claim made by the North Korean government in which is says that it has detonated a hydrogen bomb:
a claim that, if true, would dramatically escalate the nuclear challenge from one of the world's most isolated and dangerous states.
In a brief announcement, about an hour after seismic detectors around the world picked up a 5.1 magnitude seismic event along the country's northeast cost, officials said that the test was a "complete success." But it is difficult to tell whether that boast is true, and it may be weeks or longer before detectors sent aloft by the United States and other powers can determine what kind of test was conducted.
The apparent North Korean test took place at or near the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, where the three previous tests have been conducted over the past nine years. But if the North Korean claim is true, this one was of a of a different nature.
Like most of the rest of the world who know something about the physics of these devices, I'm very skeptical of this claim, given that, even on a slow news day, the North Korean government has about as much credibility as the boy who cried wolf.
The [Comprehensive-Test-Ban Treaty Organization] has a vast global monitoring system to confirm secret (or in North Korea's case, not-so-secret) nuclear tests.
...
the organization's 280 monitoring stations around the world collect a lot of data—seismic, infrasound, hydroacoustic, radionuclide, and so on. That dataset, 16 GB a day, is a goldmine for researchers in fields as disparate as seismology and whale biology. "Basically we want to use the scientific framework to convince diplomats this is a solid organization with the technological capacity to go beyond the day-to-day monitoring of potential nuclear explosions," says executive secretary Lassina Zerbo. This year, the commission held its fifth science and technology conference in Vienna, drawing over 1,000 scientists from 104 countries."Nothing at all is comparable," says Margaret Campbell-Brown, a physicist at the University of Western Ontario. She uses the network's infrasound arrays to study meteors that whiz through the Earth's atmosphere. The magnitude of the meteors' blast waves let scientists calculate the falling rock's energy. When the Chelyabinsk meteor streaked across the Russian sky in 2013, Campbell-Brown's colleague was able to start downloading the sensors' infrasound data immediately—except, in some cases, he had to wait for the blast wave to reach a listening station halfway around the world. "The speed of sound is more of a limit than getting data off the network," she says.
It's interesting that the monitoring system is used much more for other things than only its intended purpose.
Around 00:30 UTC on Sunday the Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite launched from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station and entered a 97.4° sun-synchronous polar orbit at an altitude of 500 km. It is not yet known if payload is functional but its position can be tracked on sites such as n2yo.com. North Korea's first orbital launch was in December 2012. Western media outlets claim that the primary purpose of these launches is to test ballistic missile technology.
Additional Coverage:
N. Korea triggers fresh outrage with space rocket launch
North Korea celebrates rocket launch as others see it as a covert missile test.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @11:43AM
North Koreans are designated Evil. Nothing they do can be successful.
Now let's all joke about how all North Koreans have tiny dicks and big gaping pussies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @11:59AM
>big gaping pussies
That offends me!
Wizard sleeves.
(Score: 1) by nethead on Thursday February 11 2016, @12:24AM
He was just talking about the wonderful process of human birth. Why are you so afraid?
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Wednesday February 10 2016, @01:16PM
"The satellite North Korea fired into space on Sunday is "tumbling in orbit" and incapable of functioning in any useful way, a senior U.S."
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/08/asia/north-korea-rocket-launch/ [cnn.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 10 2016, @02:41PM
That's not breaking news, it's broken news. See the first line of the summary.
Here's breaking news:
Top North Korean General Is Said to Be Executed on Graft Charges [nytimes.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Wednesday February 10 2016, @03:21PM
drat, eyeball failure
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Wednesday February 10 2016, @04:14PM
It may be non-patriotic, but I was under the impression that anything they send into space is doomed to fail and has problems because of our Propaganda system.
When it was clear other countries were saying uh no wait, that's not right... then our experts that said it was tumbling in orbit had to change their minds.
Perhaps I am wrong, can someone that has a good grasp on aerospace/aeronautics explain to us all how a satellite generates enough drag on itself or whatever to otherwise stablize its rotational eccentricities without external influence (stablization rockets/loss of propaganda claims, etc)?
My experiences with Kerbals and just what I've read over time seem to indicate that satellites behaving badly are often hard behavioral problems to correct...but hey I am not a rocket surgeon so what do I know!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 10 2016, @04:38PM
We're being mean to the maligned North Koreans... or we were correct about the real time status of the satellite, North Korea has a demonstrable history of crappy rocket/missile/satellite launches, and even this thing is not transmitting (aka, not useful) as far as anyone can tell (something that could be potentially verified independently).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday February 10 2016, @05:07PM
"The USA has a demonstrable history of crappy rocket/missile/satellite launches" - Soviet general, early 1960s...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Dunbal on Wednesday February 10 2016, @05:01PM
can someone that has a good grasp on aerospace/aeronautics explain to us all how a satellite generates enough drag on itself or whatever to otherwise stablize its rotational eccentricities without external influence
You'd be amazed at what can be achieved with simple [wikipedia.org] flywheels [wikipedia.org]. Don't fuck with angular momentum. No drag required.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @02:43PM
Their simulation software must be KSP.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @01:21PM
if it meant world peace?
(Score: 1) by odd42 on Wednesday February 10 2016, @01:33PM
Like clockwork for the US election.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @01:57PM
Their missile tests in 2014 and 2013 were also planned for US election years.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday February 10 2016, @07:47PM
Well duh, those were the two previous elections where Kim Jong Il was elected as US President.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Covalent on Wednesday February 10 2016, @02:17PM
We attack Iraq because maybe there's some weapons, er, under the, um, yeah the sand! Yeah, the sand! Afghanistan has some bad guys in caves (sir they're in Pakistan...SHH!!) I said AFGHANISTAN has some bad guys in caves!
But North Korea has plutonium, atomic weapons, and is regularly rattling its neighbors by testing missiles and launching satellites and the like. Yeah, they're not really good at it, but they will get better, and the weapons only have to work once to be devastating.
So why aren't we determining where their nuclear armaments are and turning them into smoking craters?
I am genuinely asking? I've heard the Chinese wouldn't like that, it's not in our sphere of influence, international partnership, etc etc etc. But that never stopped us in the past, including in 1950 when we invaded North Korea!
If we don't think they can really nuke somebody yet...but we DO think they'll be able to soon...AND they are clearly stating they're going to blow up our allies and maybe start a nuclear war...isn't NOW the time we actually should be using drones?
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by turgid on Wednesday February 10 2016, @02:23PM
Don't be daft. The longer you put it off, the worse the situation will get, ergo the more money required to give to the Military Industrial Complex to sort it out. And as all good free-market capitalists know, the Military Industrial Complex is what drives economic growth. So there
You're not some kind of godless pinko commie, are you? Now where did I leave my Valium....
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by Covalent on Wednesday February 10 2016, @04:56PM
Oh, right! I forgot to turn off the logic and reason centers of my brain and turn on the manipulation, extortion, and underhandedness centers.
Thanks for setting me straight. :)
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by skater on Wednesday February 10 2016, @03:28PM
You do understand that George W. Bush and Barack Obama are two different people, right, with different opinions and methods? I'm not saying either one is right or wrong, but for cryin' out loud, people vote different candidates into office because they want something different to happen, and now we have a different president, and he's doing something different (whether it's better or worse is up to you), and you're complaining that the country isn't consistent with something that happened over a decade ago.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday February 10 2016, @03:31PM
The reason the US doesn't attack North Korea is blindingly obvious: There's a major cost to doing so, namely that the North could nuke Seoul and at least a few major cities in Japan.
The real reason [informationclearinghouse.info] that the US attacked Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism or weapons (that document was written a full year before 9/11 and signed by people who would end up in the Bush administration 5 months later).
And then they wonder why Iran started making efforts to get nukes themselves. Because the message the US has been sending to the world is "If you have nukes, we'll leave you alone. If you don't have nukes, we'll say you do and blow you to smithereens whenever we feel like it."
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by gnuman on Wednesday February 10 2016, @05:07PM
If you have nukes, we'll leave you alone. If you don't have nukes, we'll say you do and blow you to smithereens whenever we feel like it.
Indeed. Examples are not just Iraq. Look at Libya. Look at Ukraine.
It's absolutely asinine thinking that destabilizing any nation is going to be in self-interest of anything. But hey, we got ISIL out of it and possibly another Cold War - what couldn't be more important than petty squabbling of self-important assholes?
“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.”
― Edgar D. Mitchell (Apollo 14 astronaut)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by nethead on Thursday February 11 2016, @12:00AM
Don't forget the refuge crisis. What is S. Korea and China going to do with millions of shit poor brainwashed refuges?
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 2, Troll) by julian on Wednesday February 10 2016, @08:06PM
You're overlooking another option Iran has always had available to them: reform their society to align with the norms of modern civilizations and rejoin the comity of nations. Look at Germany and Japan: former mortal enemies are now our allies and trading partners enjoying some of the highest living standards in the world--higher than our own by many metrics. Iran could renounce apocalyptic Islamism, form a secular democratic government that respects human rights, and abandon their aspirations to nuclear weapons; they'd be an ally and friend within a generation. Their economy would boom, living standards would soar. What America really wants are peaceful, secular, business-friendly, trading partners.
So why don't they do this? Why is this vision of life so inimical to the Iranian psyche? Pride? Religion? Foolishness, in other words.
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Wednesday February 10 2016, @09:10PM
O.M.F.G.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat [wikipedia.org]
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/19/politics/cia-iran-1953-coup/index.html [cnn.com]
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB28/ [gwu.edu]
(Score: 2) by julian on Wednesday February 10 2016, @09:37PM
I'm aware of the coup. It doesn't change the fact that the best way forward for Iran today, and I mean for the Iranians themselves, would be to emulate the West, not antagonize it. Holding grudges isn't good for business. The world and the USA are different than in the 1950s. What we did to Germany and Japan was much worse, and they found it in themselves to let go of the past. Imagine if Japan refused to have normal diplomatic relations with the USA, in 2016, because of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Would the Japanese be better or worse off for this course of action?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by nethead on Thursday February 11 2016, @12:21AM
It doesn't change the fact that the best way forward for Iran today, and I mean for the Iranians themselves, would be to emulate the West...
We have religious anti-science nut-jobs leading in some polls for one party's Presidential candidate, and a lot more of them already elected in lower offices. I think they are already emulatin' this part of the West just fine. I hope better for them actually.
Most Iranians want the things we want, clean water, good schools, half-priced hot wings on Tuesday.... The whole "Death to America" shit is emotionally the same as us saying the Yankees suck. Yeah, we mean it, but we don't really base our day-to-day lives on it. They don't like the US because we fucked up not just their politics, but also their economy with the overthrow, and sanctions and what not. So they threw a nuclear hissy-fit to get our attention. Now we have an administration that is trying to walk them back from the edge, and it seems to be working.
I agree, they could be great partners. I would love to see that.
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday February 11 2016, @12:58AM
While Japan and Germany are the West's friends and allies now, they both lived under occupation for a decade or so, (and there are still US troops in both countries to this day).
Also Japan's and Germany's politics were formed and guided by the West for many years. You can add South Korea and Taiwan in too if you like. All so that they would become the friendly allied nations they are today. It's not exactly an accident.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday February 10 2016, @09:58PM
They just agreed to do that part a few months ago, and by all appearances have stuck to that policy.
Which would explain why America overthrew the secular and peaceful Iranian prime minister Mossadegh in the 1950's. And sent weapons to the not-at-all peaceful Saddam Hussein in order to help him fight the Iranian government back in the 1980's. And sold weapons to the theocratic Iranian government in order to illegally funnel weapons and money to the "peaceful" Nicaraguan Contras. And stands by the explicitly Jewish and nuclear-armed state of Israel no matter what they do to both the Palestinians and the Lebanese.
The "US are the good guys" hypothesis has never successfully explained observable US foreign policy.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by julian on Wednesday February 10 2016, @10:58PM
They just agreed to do that part a few months ago, and by all appearances have stuck to that policy.
Which is good progress. I'm not a member of the party that's been trying to sabotage it.
Which would explain why America overthrew the secular and peaceful Iranian prime minister Mossadegh in the 1950's.
The cold war and lingering old-style colonialism explain it, though not excuse it. It was a crime, and a mistake, and we're all still paying for it. The US Government should formally apologize.
Reagan was probably a war criminal, and I only say probably because he may have already been senile with Alzheimer's disease when he made those decisions. And as for Israel I'd refer you to an interesting essay (podcast transcript, really) by Sam Harris [samharris.org]. It closely tracks my feelings on the topic.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Wednesday February 10 2016, @04:10PM
Bullies hit people who can't hit back.
If the bully thinks you can hit back, you get left alone.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday February 10 2016, @04:12PM
The first Iraq invasion was because Saddam invaded Kuwait. The second one was because the US was still pissed-off from 9/11 and the President convinced everyone it was a good idea (because of "WMD"s).
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Wednesday February 10 2016, @05:05PM
So why aren't we determining where their nuclear armaments are and turning them into smoking craters?
Because the last time you tried China sent a few million troops to kick your asses halfway down the Korean peninsula again. History is important.
(Score: 2) by julian on Wednesday February 10 2016, @07:07PM
So why aren't we determining where their nuclear armaments are and turning them into smoking craters?
As others have said, DPRK is a hostage crisis and the hostage taker has a gun to the head of tens of millions of people. Worse, millions of Norks are so thoroughly brainwashed that they'll willingly die to protect their tormentors. If we ever put them in a position where they had nothing to lose, they'd unleash a conflagration of death and destruction to rival WWII (complete with nuclear weapons), and in a much more compressed time span.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday February 10 2016, @08:04PM
Best Korea is a Chinese client state, and China does not want a united, democratic Korea adjacent to her. Such a state would likely have good relations with Japan, and that scenario would challenge China's regional hegemony.
This is similar to Russia's protection of autocratic Belarus.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by ksarka on Thursday February 11 2016, @08:42AM
What makes you think that the US has more rights to WMD's than any other nation on the world? If you can have a nuke, Iran can. And North Korea can. Even Andorra can have one, if they want to. Your dictators and war criminals have no right to tell anyone else on the world not to produce WMDs if they keep, and continue producing, their own WMDs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @03:37PM
The point was they reached a stable orbit, therefore they have an intercontinental missile. This would be icing on the cake for them, though, if they have managed to stabilize it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Wednesday February 10 2016, @05:54PM
They had that the last time they put a satellite into orbit. Even if the payload fails to achieve orbit, they've already had this capability. The thing is a nuclear payload is a LOT heavier, and I doubt they have enough Delta-V to get one into orbit.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Thursday February 11 2016, @03:49PM
Devil's Advocate here.
Who's told you that North Korea is pursuing a nuclear program? Can you trust this source? Could it be possible that NK are being used as boogey-men to enable lawmakers to put through more and more surveillance powers through government?
As was posted before, the reason Iraq was invaded had nothing to do with WMDs. In actual fact, had Iraq really had WMDs, there's no way in hell the US would have invaded them so casually. NK just so happens to have neither WMDs nor anything worth invading for, so they are used as a tool to scare the general public. The minit either of these things changes in NK, you can be certain that the drones will be circling.
(Score: 1) by Grayson on Wednesday February 10 2016, @06:08PM
Just because a satellite is tumbling, doesn't preclude it from being within a stable orbit.