Kim's rocket goes BOOM! during launch and it was caught on camera

Stage One of a North Korean rocket exploded on Tuesday during a alleged spy satellite launch, a video that captured the event shows. The camera, normally used for tracking meteors or shooting stars, was from South Korea's Yonsei University [Go Jajangmyeons!]. The video showed the first stage of the North Korean Chollima-1 rocket appearing to erupt and spread debris, Reuters reported on Friday.

"This time they appear to have detonated the first stage propellant in mid-air," Byun Yong-Ik, an astronomy professor at Yonsei University, told Reuters. "This kind of measure was not seen in the previous launch attempts, and it could have been an effort to prevent South Korean and U.S. authorities from recovering the (rocket), as it is equipped with a new engine."

The activity was classified as unusual by North Korean rocket experts in the report.

The U.S. Space Force, a branch of the military initiated by former President Donald Trump, cataloged an object in orbit matching the trajectory of the launch, suggesting the spy satellite is actually in space, astronomer Jonathan McDowell posted Tuesday on X.

McDowell, who is based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, also tracks worldwide space launches, landings and re-entries.

Following North Korea's claims of the successful spy satellite launch on Tuesday, senior U.S. officials and the Biden White House condemned the activity and even wagged their fingers.

White House officials released a statement saying the launch on Tuesday was "a brazen violation of multiple UN (United Nations) Security Council resolutions, raises tensions, and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region and beyond."

South Korea is planning its own first spy satellite for launch later in November, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

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