A model space shuttle in the lobby of the Mangyongdae Children's Palace in Pyongyang, North Korea. (Alexander F. Yuan/AP)

North Korea has warned it could launch a satellite — widely seen as cover for a long-range ballistic missile test — as soon as Sunday, moving up the date range for its planned launch.

With tensions still running high after last month’s nuclear test, Pyongyang is defying international exhortations to desist from further provocations, and last week warned it would launch a rocket between Feb. 8 and 25.

But Saturday, Jon Ki Chol, director general of North Korea’s Maritime Administration, advised that the launch could take place as soon as Sunday.

“On the launch schedule of earth observation satellite ‘Kwangmyongsong,’ I have the honour to inform you that the reserved launch date has changed to 7-14 February 2016,” Jon wrote in a letter to the International Maritime Organization, the body responsible for safety at sea.

North Korea also updated its “notice to airmen” with the new date range.

Japan and South Korea have warned airlines of potential hazards along flight paths in the area, with the rocket expected to be fired from the Sohae satellite launching station on North Korea’s west coast, not far from the border with South Korea, then projected to fly over the southern Japanese islands of Okinawa and falling into the sea east of the Philippines.

Japan has three Patriot surface-to-air missile systems ready in Tokyo and four in Okinawa, poised to shoot down the rocket.

[North Korea announces plan to launch rocket carrying observation satellite]

North Korea last fired a long-range missile in December 2012, sending what it said was a communications satellite into orbit for scientific purposes. That launch coincided with the first anniversary of the death of Kim Jong Il, the current leader’s father.

This month’s planned launch is also expected to see a Kwangmyongsong-3 (“lode star”) satellite fired on an Unha-3 (“galaxy”) missile, although North Korean state media reports have mentioned other models of rockets all the way up to the Unha-9. It also coincides with another key date: North Korea’s celebration of Kim Jong Il’s birthday on Feb. 16.

Commercial satellite imagery of the Sohae launch station shows the arrival of tanker trucks at the launchpad, according to an analysis published on 38 North, a website dedicated to North Korea. This was consistent with North Korea’s announced launch window, it said.

There were also signs of activity around the horizontal processing building, which in the past has been used to receive the rocket stages and assemble them in a horizontal position, 38 North said.

[China backs U.N. move to denounce North Korea over nuclear test]

The leaders of the United States, South Korea and Japan all urging North Korea not to go ahead with the launch — and urging China to put pressure on its errant neighbor to stop.

After President Obama spoke to China’s president, Xi Jinping, on the phone Friday, the White House said that both leaders “conveyed that they will not accept North Korea as a nuclear weapon state.” They also “agreed that North Korea’s planned ballistic missile test would contravene multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and represent another provocative and destabilizing action,” the White House said in a statement.

U.N. resolutions prohibit North Korea from carrying out nuclear or ballistic missile tests, but Kim Jong Un’s regime has shown little regard for the orders. Last month it tested its fourth nuclear device, although analysts dismissed North Korea’s claims that the device was a hydrogen bomb. Analysts have said its recent claims to have launched a missile from a submarine were also exaggerated.

But China has said that the situation with North Korea is “complicated and sensitive.”

In a commentary carried by Xinhua, the state news agency, Zhu Dongyang wrote that since last month’s nuclear test, China had “spared no efforts to promote dialogue with the countries concerned so as to lower the simmering tension.”

But he said Beijing strongly disapproved of the United States’ planned sanctions, and he urged Washington to do more to create a better atmosphere.

“A good gain takes long pain,” Zhu wrote. “The fundamental solution to the current standoff depends on the West tossing aside its animosity toward the isolated nation.”

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Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world