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North Korea, 2001
This IKONOS commercial satellite image of North Korea's No Dong missile test
pad represented the first use of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery
by a non-governmental organization (NGO) to independently examine a facility
that concerned the U.S. intelligence community. The Federation of American
Scientists ordered and published this image to influence public opinion. This
and related images revealed that No Dong is rather unimpressive compared to
missile programs in other countries; it's small compared to missile launch
sites elsewhere in the world, and it only has a dirt road leading to it, for
instance. Hardliners in the U.S. government who had been agitating about the
North Korean missile program withheld releasing the image for fear the public
might conclude that the North Korean missile program was not as advanced as the
intelligence community and legislative supporters of missile defense claimed.
In the image, the circle in the center is the missile launch platform, while
the diagonal dark rectangle below it is the shadow cast by the missile
erector.
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