South Korea's defense ministry estimated Tuesday that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) extended its ballistic missile range to about 12,000 km from an earlier estimate of 10,000 km through Sunday's rocket launch.
Seoul's defense ministry announced its interim assessment on the DPRK's rocket launch, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency report.
Pyongyang said on Sunday that it had successfully put a Kwangmyongsong-4 Earth observation satellite into orbit aboard a Kwangmyongsong rocket.
The defense ministry said the DPRK had succeeded twice in its long-range ballistic missile launch, including the three-stage Unha-3 rocket that carried a Kwangmyongsong-3 observation satellite into space in December 2012.
The Kwangmyongsong and Unha-3 rockets had the same flight path, but the former is estimated to have a range of about 12,000 km, longer than the latter's estimated range of some 10,000 km.
The Unha-3 was estimated to have enhanced the DPRK's long-range missile capability to strike the west coast of the U.S. mainland.
The Kwangmyongsong may enable Pyongyang to hit the eastern part of the United States with its long-range missiles. Rockets and ballistic missiles have a lot of overlapping technologies.
The ministry, however, assessed that Pyongyang hasn't earned a technology of atmospheric re-entry, a prerequisite for developing an intercontinental ballistic missile.
The Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite was estimated by South Korea's spy agency to weigh about 200 kg, double the weight of its predecessor Kwangmyongsong-3.
A rocket capable of carrying some 1,000 kg of payload can be developed into a potential ICBM delivering a nuclear warhead.
The DPRK's rocket launch came about a month after what it claimed was its first H-bomb test on Jan. 6. Pyongyang conducted atomic bomb tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.
The Kwangmyongsong rocket successfully delivered a new satellite into orbit, some nine minutes and 29 seconds after the liftoff at 9:30 a.m. local time on Sunday, according to Seoul's defense ministry.
It was faster than the DPRK-announced flight time by 17 seconds.
Confirming the DPRK announcement, the ministry said the rocket went through normal separation of three stages, and that the satellite had been put into orbit normally.
The rocket was fired at 9:30 a.m., and two minutes later, the first stage was separated and fell in waters off South Korea's northwest coast.
Right after the separation, the first stage was exploded into some 270 fragments with self-destructor to prevent South Korea from discovering the first stage and assessing it, the ministry said.
The first stage landed in drop zones, of which, the DPRK had already informed the International Maritime Organization.
The second stage was estimated to have fallen off the Philippine's east coast, about 2,380 km away from the DPRK's main Tongchang-ri rocket base in its west coast.
