North Korea: No Launch on Thursday?

North Korea may not launch its so called weather satellite on Thursday due to poor weather conditions.

"The weather is poor, and it is now past the launch time given, so there will probably be no launch," said an unnamed government source, quoted by Japan's Kyodo news agency. Although there is every possibility the prediction can go wrong.

When Pyongyang opened its launch window on Thursday morning, many nations have turned their heads towards the country with nervousness, especially its neighbours. Fighter jets were roaring in the sky as the window opened.

The country has scheduled the launch of satellite ostensibly to monitor agricultural and natural resources in a five-day window starting Thursday.

The same morning the North Koreans also woke up to the developments of Wednesday's party conference where the new leader Kim Jong Un was honoured with top posts and along with him a new generation of officials were inducted.

North has severely antagonised several nations which suspect that the satellite launch plan is a cover up for its ballistic missile test.

Meanwhile, the experts are seriously questioning north's intentions in its race to space.

Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics says, "It's very safe to say that the 1998 and 2009 events did not result in a satellite."

"US tracking would have easily seen it if it stayed in orbit for a few hours or more. Russia would also have tracked the satellite and it is likely but not certain that amateurs would have picked it up," he added, as quoted by the Associated Press.

Another expert Kong Chang-duk, a professor at Chosun University in Seoul who has participated in South Korea's rocket development, says, "I have doubts about whether North Korea is seriously planning a satellite launch this time at all. If they are, it would be very primitive. But I question whether they have the control technology," reports AP.

There was no official word as such from the North Korean authorities on the exact timing of the controversial launch, which they said will take any time between Thursday and Monday. In 2009, during the five-day window a similar launch took place on the second day.