Watch the skies. In an alert filed with the United Nations' International Maritime Organization, the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (otherwise known as North Korea) announced plans to launch a satellite sometime in February. The nation also provided warnings for the areas where its boost stages might plummet back to the surface. Japan's Ministry of Defense has since announced that Japan will shoot down the rocket if it flies toward Japan.

The launch, from North Korea's western coast near its border with China, will likely be the latest version of North Korea's Kwangmyŏngsŏng ("Bright Star") satellite series, aboard the latest version of the Unha ("Galaxy") rocket. The splash locations given by North Korea for the launch—the first stage landing in the Yellow Sea between South Korea and China and the second in the Philippine Sea east of the Philippines—are nearly identical to those of North Korea's last orbital effort.

The launch announcement comes just a month after a surprise nuclear weapons test in which the regime of Kim Jong-un claimed to have detonated a thermonuclear bomb. North Korea also claims to have developed a miniaturized nuclear warhead that could be placed atop a ballistic missile, though US intelligence officials have downplayed those reports.

The news prompted an immediate condemnation from the US. "This act would violate numerous Security Council resolutions by utilizing proscribed ballistic missile technology," said US State Department spokesman John Kirby in a press briefing.

Last month's nuclear test also directly violated UN Security Council resolutions. It's likely that China would block any further sanctions against the Kim regime, however, largely out of concern of destabilizing North Korea and creating an even larger security problem for China.

Japan has deployed anti-ballistic missile defenses. Additionally, NK News reports, Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ordered Japan's self-defense forces to “cooperate with the US and South Korea” to deter North Korea’s missile launch.

The last attempt by North Korea to orbit a satellite, an "Earth observation" satellite called Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2, came in December 2012. Intended to track crop production, the 220-pound satellite reached orbit but failed almost instantly. The first Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 was launched in April 2012, but it never made it to orbit, prompting a rare admission of failure from the Kim regime. According to North Korean official statements, previous failed efforts in 1998 and 2009 both resulted in orbiting satellites broadcasting revolutionary songs back to Earth (though neither launch resulted in a trackable satellite being orbited).

The three-stage Unha rocket would probably not make a very effective ballistic missile on its own. However, the weight of the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 satellite is similar to that of an ICBM warhead, and the technology needed to get that mass into orbit is similar to what would be required to get an ICBM reentry vehicle to its target.

In related news, late last month the Missile Defense Agency and Raytheon performed a successful test of new components for the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV), a ground-based mid-course antiballistic missile defense system that intercepts ballistic missiles while they are still in space. The EKV is designed to track and intercept missiles tracked by ground radar autonomously with optic sensors and collide with them to take them out.