This will be North Korea's second consecutive failure to get a satellite into orbit, although it claimed success with a 2009 launch. A North Korean soldier stands guard at the rocket site before the launch. Credit:Reuters There was no immediate comment on Friday's launch from North Korea's official media, but an official statement was expected. North Korea said it wanted the Unha-3 (Galaxy-3) rocket to put a weather satellite into orbit, although critics believed it was designed to enhance the capacity of North Korea to design a ballistic missile to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting Australia or the continental United States. Such a move would be banned by United Nations resolutions.

The regime spent more than $800 million on the rocket, enough to feed millions in the impoverished country, London's Daily Telegraph reported. The rocket launch was the first under new North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Credit:Reuters The UN Security Council will meet in emergency session today to "to decide its next step" following the launch, a UN diplomat said. Rocket flew for a minute Japan's Defence Minister Naoki Tanaka said that North Korea had launched a "flying object" that fell into the ocean after a short flight.

"We have the information some sort of flying object had been launched from North Korea" around 7.40am, the minister told reporters. "The flying object is believed to have flown for more than one minute and fallen into the ocean. This does not affect our country's territory at all." Immediately after the launch, South Korea issued an order urging residents near the inter-Korean border to seek shelter to protect themselves from any debris that might fall from the rocket, Yonhap newswire said. North Korea said its rocket launch was not a banned missile test and that it had every right to send the satellite up, to coincide with Sunday's centenary of the birth of its founding leader Kim Il-Sung. The 30-metre rocket had been positioned at a newly built space centre on the country's north-western Yellow Sea coast.

North Korea has invited up to 200 foreign journalists to Pyongyang for the launch and the weekend commemorations, the largest number of overseas media ever welcomed in to the reclusive state. North Korea is in the midst of cementing a power transition between the former leader Kim Jong-il who died last December and his untested son Kim Jong-un who is in his late 20s. International criticism US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had earlier warned North Korea of UN Security Council action if it pressed ahead with the launch. "If Pyongyang goes forward [with the launch] we will all be back in the Security Council to take further action," Mrs Clinton told reporters after consulting with her counterparts from the Group of Eight industrial nations.

"There is no doubt that this [launch] would use ballistic missile technology," she said, urging Pyongyang to refrain from "pursuing a cycle of provocation". Her comments were followed by an unusually strongly worded statement issued by foreign ministers of the Group of Eight, which "demanded" that North Korea abandon the launch. South Korea also condemned the rocket launch as a "provocative act" that posed a threat to peace and security on the Korean peninsula and in North-East Asia. "North Korea's launch... is a clear breach of the UN resolution that prohibits any launch using ballistic missile technology. It is a provocative act threatening peace and security on the Korean peninsula and North-East Asia,’" Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan said. Timeline - key dates in North Korea's missile program:

Late 1970s: Starts working on a version of the Soviet Scud-B (range 300 kilometres). Test-fired in 1984. 1987-92: Begins developing variant of Scud-C (500km), Rodong-1 (1300km), Taepodong-1 (2500km), Musudan-1 (3000km) and Taepodong-2 (6700 km). Aug 1998: Test-fires Taepodong-1 over Japan as part of failed satellite launch. Sept 1999: Declares moratorium on long-range missile tests amid improving ties with the US. July 12, 2000: Fifth round of US-North Korean missile talks ends in Kuala Lumpur without agreement after North demands $US1 billion a year in return for halting missile exports.

Dec 2002: Fifteen North Korean-made Scuds seized on Yemen-bound ship. March 3, 2005: North ends moratorium on long-range missile testing, blames Bush administration's "hostile" policy. July 5, 2006: North test-fires seven missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2, which explodes after 40 seconds. July 15, 2006: United Nations Security Council adopts Resolution 1695, demanding halt to all ballistic missile activity and banning trade in missile-related items with the North. Oct 9, 2006: North conducts underground nuclear test, its first.

Oct 14, 2006: UN Security Council approves Resolution 1718, demanding a halt to missile and nuclear tests. Bans the supply of items related to the programs and of other weapons. April 5, 2009: North Korea launches long-range rocket, which flies over Japan and lands in the Pacific, in what it says is an attempt to put a satellite into orbit. The US, Japan and South Korea see it as a disguised test of a Taepodong-2. April 13, 2009: UN Security Council unanimously condemns launch, agrees to tighten existing sanctions. North quits nuclear disarmament talks in protest and vows to restart its plutonium program. May 25, 2009: North conducts its second underground nuclear test, several times more powerful than the first. June 12, 2009: Security Council passes Resolution 1874, imposing tougher sanctions on the North's atomic and ballistic missile programs.

July 4, 2009: North test-fires seven ballistic missiles off its east coast. Feb 18, 2011: Satellite images show the North has completed a launch tower at its new west coast missile base at Tongchang-ri, experts say. May 15, 2011: North Korea and Iran are suspected of sharing ballistic missile technology, according to a UN sanctions report, diplomats say. March 16, 2012: North Korea announces it will launch a long-range rocket between April 12 and 16 to put a satellite into orbit. Loading

April 13, 2012: Rocket is launched from the Tongchang-ri base and appears to have disintegrated soon after blast-off and fallen into the ocean, South Korean authorities said. AFP, Reuters

