Kwangmyŏngsŏng 3

Kwangmyŏngsŏng 3

Kwangmyŏngsŏng 3 was reportedly a North Korean Earth observation satellite an the country's third attempt to orbit a satellite.

The satellite reportedly had a launch mass of about 100 kg and a life time of 2 years. The dimensions are 1.4 m × 0.6 m × 0.7 m. Power is provided by body mounted solar cells. The announced orbit is a sun synchronous orbit at an altitude of 500 kilometers. It is claimed to have 3-axis control to point a camera to earth. The satellite will broadcast its remote sensing data in the UHF band and video in the X-band.

It was launched on 12 April 2012 on an Unha-3 rocket from the Sŏhae Satellite Center in Ch’ŏlsan County, North P’yŏngan Province. Due to an failure late in the burn of the first stage, the satellite did not reach orbit.

A second flight model of the satellite was successfully launched in December 2012, but no signals from the satellite have been detected.