North Korea's satellite is tumbling in orbit

A man walks by a news broadcast about North Korea's satellite launch.

(Image credit: Han Myung-Gu/Getty Images)

last updated 9 February 2016

The satellite launched by North Korea on Saturday is tumbling in orbit, rendering it useless, a U.S. official said Monday.

Although the payload of the Unha 3 rocket made it into orbit, it has been tumbling ever since, the official told ABC News. North Korea still views the launch as a success, and the official said the fact that the payload was able to make it into orbit is troubling — the technology needed to make that happen is the same necessary to get a ballistic nuclear armed intercontinental missile to the United States, ABC News reports.

The Joint Space Operations Center is tracking the satellite and a rocket booster stage also in orbit, and it could take years for the payload to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere; the JSPOC is still tracking the payload and debris items from a North Korean missile launched in December 2012, ABC News says. No transmission signals were ever detected coming from that satellite.