This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 62%. (I'm a bot)

> South Korea's Defense Ministry said Friday night that the multiple unidentified aircraft flying over the sky was a successful test of its solid-fuel space rocket.

> South Korea launched a solid-fuel space rocket for the first time in March, as part of a project to develop civilian and military surveillance satellites.

> The March launch was the first test since South Korea and the United States agreed last year to end restrictions on the country's ballistic missile and rocket development.

Extended Summary | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: South^#1 launch^#2 Province^#3 Korea^#4 rocket^#5

Yeah, definitely for civilian uses, not like its the core technology for ICBM capability and most certainly not SK flexing on North Korea after the recent string of hostile launches. After all, there's no reason to do this at night when all neighboring countries can see its fuel residue, right? Right?

Except the North actually lofted a satellite into orbit over a decade ago and the recent attempt to do the same by the South suffered a crippling malfunction iirc.

Somebody got triggered lol

Tankie begone

How can someone be a pro-north korea tankie. I'm a tankie but can't ever accept that neo feudalist hell as anything commie. I'm not exactly a tankie i guess, i'm anarcho commie, but anyway

I never heard of the term "anarcho commie". I'm genuinely curious now and I hope you don't mind me asking but what's your position on all the Chinese/ Russian stuff?

What's up with that crazy-looking flight path?

Tankie and Anarcho Commie aren’t even remotely close lol. Tankie is significantly more akin to North Korea than it is to anarchism. Tankie being a Stalinist totalitarian style of intensely state-controlled communism, which is functionally what North Korea is.

It’s not really a fair comparison since South Korea was restricted on what high-range weaponry they could develop for years and only got the range ban lifted last year by the US. I suspect they’ll be doing lots of catch-up tests over the next few years.

Not gonna lie the flypath looked janky as hell.

The south successfully launched their first satellite in 1992, the north in 2012, 2 decades later.

What are you talking about?

Not with their own rocket

That's not actually a real restriction, not for countries who are independent.

So? They used the benefit of having western allies.

And north koreas Unha rockets are not very indigenous either, since they are based on soviet Scud missiles.

So then they didn't do it, and the North even if modifying pre-existing designs still had to successfully pull that off which they did.

Wind. Hope this helps

It was for South Korea, a requirement forced on them in order to be allowed access to US missile technology in the ‘70s. It certainly should have been lifted years ago though.

Nothing was forced on them.

This is "thanks" to Trump.

Trump wanted the Asian allies to be more independent (because "they aren't paying enough!" as if the US is a mercenary force and not in Asia for their own benefit), so (finally) cut the restrictions on rocket / missile distance, meaning South Korea could focus on rocket / missile development.

And since then, they've become the world's 7th (?) country to independently send a 1 tonne payload to space... something like that. Only about 2 years ago.

Sort of, Trump agreed to relax it to 800 km in 2017, Biden eliminated them completely in March of 2021. It was inevitable that they were going to get scrapped by the next president, no matter who it was.

They’re making exceptional progress for sure.