Though the Super Bowl had ended about an hour earlier, North Korea’s new satellite nearly passed over the Santa Clara, Calif. stadium, according to the Associated Press.
The flyby occurred following the satellite’s launch Sunday, which prompted an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council and international condemnation.
“The members of the Security Council underscored that this launch, as well as any other DPRK launch that uses ballistic missile technology, even if characterized as a satellite launch or space launch vehicle, contributes to the DPRK’s development of nuclear weapon delivery systems and is a serious violation of Security Council resolutions,” said the UN Permanent Representative of Venezuela Rafael Darío Ramírez Carreño on Sunday. “In line with this commitment and the gravity of the most recent violation, the members of the Security Council will adopt expeditiously a new Security Council resolution with such measures in response to these dangerous and serious violations.”
The new satellite (Kwangmyongsong 4) joined orbit with North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong 3-2, which was launched in 2012. North Korea has said the satellites are meant for “monitoring the weather, mapping natural resources and forest distributions and providing data that might help farmers improve their crops,” according to the Associated Press.
“I have no idea when the end of the Super Bowl was, not a sports fan,” said Jonathan McDowell, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, to the Associated Press. “But KMS-4 did pass over that part of California at 8:27 p.m. PST at an altitude of 480 km. I calculate it was 35 mi west and 300 mi up as it passed overhead heading almost due north.”
At the time of the launch, the North American Aerospace Defense Command deemed it not a threat to North America.
North Korea claims the satellite entered orbit nine minutes and forty-six seconds after launch.
