U.S. Reviewing Launch Services Agreement for North Korea, Spacelift Washington Update

WASHINGTON – The Clinton administration will review a North Korean government proposal to drop development of its satellite launcher and intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) systems in return for western assistance in launching satellites into Earth orbit, administration sources told the western news media. The North Korean proposal was made to President Clinton by Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin over the weekend at the G-8 World Economic Summit in Okinawa Japan.

The Clinton administration was unprepared by the request and caught offguard by the proposals. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told journalists North Korea was seeking the ability to launch one to two satellites per year and would not require the launchings to take place inside North Korea. “This (the launchings) might be assistance by certain states, or a pool. ..in other words, there are choices in solving this question,” the Interfax News Agency quoted him as saying in Moscow.

The exact type of launching services or capabilities would be the subject of discussions and, ultimately, negotiations with the North Korean government. Two years ago North Korea launched a multi-stage rocket into space which passed briefly over parts of the Japanese island during its ascent. Although North Korean officials claimed the rocket had orbited a satellite, western observers could find no trace of a spacecraft and the launching was believed to either have failed to orbit or was a test flight of a ballistic missile configuration.

Clinton departed the summit Saturday after releasing a joint statement with Putin saying that the proposal needed additional study “and should be investigated further.”

“Not only does it offer the prospect of North Korea stopping its rocket development program, but also of opening new lines of communication via the North Korean scientists and engineers that would work on a joint program,” said Prof. Thomas L. Matula, Ph.D. of National University in La Jolla, California. Matula is the lead faculty member of the university’s Space Commerce MBA program.

Launch community sources speculated that an agreement could be fashioned with the country that would set a framework for launches of satellites by U.S. or Russian launch vehicles from foreign launching sites with monitoring of North Korean space technology and missile development as part of the deal.

South Korea was also interested in developing a space launching capability and announced last January that Seoul was setting the development of an all-South Korean commercial launch vehicle a major economic development goal.

Industry observers believed that the government’s plan would require extensive international assistance to become a reality. While South Korea has a substantial technology development sector in computers and electronics, that country does not have either a major space program nor a ballistic missile program upon which to build a satellite launching capability.

With the growing cooperative exchanges between North and South, it is at least conceivable that the satellite launching efforts of the two states might be packaged together in some joint way.

“Given that South Korea also has shown an interest in space flight, perhaps the United States could develop a joint research facility with both nations, building on the recent trend, ” Matula suggested. “It would be fairly easy for the U.S. to supply the spacelift for such a venture using a mobile launch system like the Pegasus, or bringing the payloads to the U.S. for launch,” he added.

“Such a program could be very beneficial for helping both North Korea and South Korea make the transition to the new post-Cold War world,” Matula said.

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