North Korea successfully launched a satellite into a careening, drunken, stumbling orbit yesterday. That’s probably bad news for someone or some someones, but it’s still pretty impressive technologically. Here’s what it looked like from the North Korean control room as it happened.
The rocket making a successful launch — it travelled over Japan — implies North Korea is close to pinning down rocket tech that could strike Japan, or as far as Russia or the United States. Its out of control orbit also clogs up space with a dangerous piece of space junk that’s a collision risk for everyone’s satellites and other spacecraft. [Twitter]