April 2012: North Korea prepares for rocket launch
A member of the Japan Self-Defense Forces stands near a PAC-3 Patriot missile unit deployed for North Korea’s rocket launch. (Shizuo Kambayashi / Associated Press)
A man looks down from a balcony at the North Korean space agency’s General Launch Command Center on the outskirts of Pyongyang. (David Guttenfelder / Associated Press)
North Korean technicians man computer terminals at North Korea’s space agency’s General Launch Command Center on the outskirts of Pyongyang. (David Guttenfelder / Associated Press)
Officials of the U.S. and other countries fear that North Korea¿s missile program actually masks an effort to develop a delivery system for a nuclear weapon. (David Guttenfelder / Associated Press)
North Korean guide Kim Won Ho shows visiting journalists a model depicting a North Korean satellite over Earth, at the Three Revolutions exhibition hall in Pyongyang. (Ng Han Guan / Associated Press)
North Korean guide Kim Won Ho, right, speaks to a foreign journalist near a photo depicting the 2009 satellite rocket launch. (Ng Han Guan / Associated Press)
A North Korean soldier stands guard at the space center in Pyongyang. (Pedro Ugarte / AFP/Getty Images)
U.S. Adm. Samuel Locklear talks with Japanese Gen. Shigeru Iwasaki as he inspects PAC-3 Patriot missile units deployed in preparation for North Korea’s rocket launch. (Shizuo Kambayashi / Associated Press)