S. Korea confirms DPRK satellite's successful launch into orbit

SEOUL -- South Korea's defense ministry said Tuesday that a satellite, launched two days earlier by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), had successfully flied into orbit.

The DPRK's state media said Sunday that the country had successfully put a Kwangmyongsong-4 Earth observation satellite into space aboard a Kwangmyongsong rocket about nine minutes and 46 seconds after lift-off at 9:30 am local time.

Confirming the DPRK announcement, the defense ministry said the rocket went through normal separation of three stages, and that the satellite had been put into orbit normally.

The rocket was fired at 9:30 am, and two minutes later, the first stage was separated and fell in waters off South Korea's northeast coast.

Right after the separation, the first stage was exploded into some 270 fragments with self-destructor to prevent South Korea from discovering the first stage and assessing it, the ministry said.

The first stage landed in drop zones, of which the DPRK had already informed the International Maritime Organization.

The second stage was estimated to have fallen off the Philippine's east coast, about 2,380 km far away from the DPRK's main Tongchang-ri rocket base in its west coast.

The ministry said the Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite was put into space nine minutes 29 seconds after the blast-off, faster than the DPRK's flight time by 17 seconds.