N Korea rocket launch plan well advanced

New satellite imagery shows advanced preparations by North Korea for its rocket launch, including a mobile radar trailer and apparently empty fuel tanks, a US website reported Monday. The North says its rocket will put a peaceful satellite into orbit between April 12-16, while the United States and its allies accuse Pyongyang of planning a ballistic missile test banned under UN resolutions. The photography "reveals that North Korea has undertaken more extensive preparations for its planned April rocket launch than previously understood", the 38 North website (38north.org) reported. It said a March 28 photo of the entire site at Tongchang-ri in the country's far northwest appeared to show a trailer with a dish antenna -- probably a radar tracking system -- atop a ridge at the end of a new dirt road. The image taken by US firm DigitalGlobe also shows previously empty, fenced-in areas which are filled with rows of what are probably empty fuel and oxidizer tanks, said the website, which carried some of the imagery. 38 North said the tanks were apparently dumped after their contents were transferred to buildings that will directly fuel the rocket's first stage. "The large number of apparently empty tanks indicates that the transfer process may have been close to completion," said the website, a project of the US-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. There also appeared to be activity near the horizontal launcher assembly building where press reports indicated the stages of the Unha-3 rocket are located. Last Friday 38 North published a series of other satellite images from DigitalGlobe, showing work on schedule for the widely condemned launch.