Kim visits command center to view rocket launch: KCNA

SEOUL, April 6 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il visited a satellite command center Sunday to observe the launch of the North's rocket, and celebrated the successful orbiting of a communications satellite, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said Monday.

"Kim Jong Il, general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, chairman of the
National Defence Commission of the DPRK and supreme commander of the Korean
People's Army, visited the General Satellite Control and Command Centre to watch
the process of launching the experimental communications satellite
Kwangmyongsong-2 on Sunday," the KCNA said in a dispatch from Pyongyang, North
Korea's capital.
The KCNA said that the satellite Kwangmyongosng-2 soared into space by carrier
rocket Unha-2, commonly known as Taepodong II, at 11:20 a.m. before being
"smoothly and accurately put into its orbit 9 minutes and 2 seconds after being
completely separated from the carrier rocket."
The U.S., however, has said that the launch was a failure, saying its first
rocket fell into waters of East Sea, lying between Korea and Japan, and the
second and third stages into waters of Hawaii without escaping the atmosphere to
bring the satellite into space.
Kim Jong-il, accompanied by Secretary Jon Pyong-ho and First Vice-Department
Director Ju Kyu-chang of the central committee of the North Korea's ruling
Workers Party, expressed great satisfaction over the scientists and technicians
who "successfully launched the satellite with their own wisdom and technology,"
the KCNA said.
The reclusive North Korean leader praised the scientists for developing "both the
multistage carrier rocket and the satellite with their own wisdom and technology
100 percent and accurately put the satellite into orbit at one go," the KCNA
said.
Kim also stressed "the need to bring about a new turn in conquering outer space
and making peaceful use of it," it said.
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)