North Korea is aiming to plant its flag on the moon within 10 years.

That is according to a director at the country's version of NASA, who also said international sanctions would not prevent them putting more advanced satellites into orbit over the next five years.

Hyon Kwang Il, a scientist at North Korea's National Aerospace Development Administration, told AP: "Even though the US and its allies try to block our space development, our aerospace scientists will conquer space and definitely plant the flag of the DPRK on the moon."

He added that North Korean intends "to do manned spaceflight and scientific experiments in space, make a flight to the moon and moon exploration and also exploration to other planets".

Leader Kim Jong Un has ordered scientists to launch more Earth observation satellites and, in what would be a significant advance, the country's first geostationary communications satellite, Mr Hyon said.


"All of this work will be the basis for the flight to the moon," Mr Hyon said, adding that he personally would like to see that happen "within 10 years' time".

The comments were published a day after North Korea launched a missile that landed in Japanese waters for the first time in nearly 20 years.

This prompted the US to warn it was ready to defend "ourselves and our allies".

Mr Hyon denied the space program was designed to strengthen the country militarily.

He said they had already developed long-range missiles that could reach anywhere on Earth and so "there is no need for our state to use the space program for ballistic missile development".