Bright Star-3[2] or Lode Star-3[3]) was a North Korean Earth observation satellite which, according to the DPRK, was for weather forecast purposes, and whose launch was widely portrayed in the West to be a veiled ballistic missile test.

[15] The main newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said the rocket would take a "safer" flight path compared to previous launches which had strayed into Japanese airspace.

[17] A few days later, an article released by the Korean Central News Agency stressed that "the peaceful development and use of space is a universally recognized legitimate right of a sovereign state.

According to KCNA report, a total of 21 foreign media companies, including major worldwide services and television broadcasters such as the Associated Press, CNN and NBC of the United States; Russia's Channel One, NTV and Zvezda; Kyodo News Agency and NHK of Japan; Das Erste of Germany; Agence France-Presse of France; Reuters and BBC of the United Kingdom; South Africa's E.tv, Brazil's Estado de São Paulo, Libya's Libya TV and Malaysia's TV1 have sent reporters to Pyongyang.

[42] North Korea said the satellite would estimate crop yields and collect weather data as well as assess the country's forest coverage and natural resources.

North Korea's authorities closed a route that runs across the sky to the south of the Sohae launch facility between two navigation waypoints named "BODOK" and "TOMUK".

[1][47] The provider of high resolution satellite imagery DigitalGlobe took a photo on Wednesday, 28 March, showing what appears to be trucks near the North Korean launch pad, while a crane arm on the tower had been swung wide.

[49][50] An analysis provided to the Associated Press by the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on 5 April asserted that evidence suggests the first stage might be in the launch stand's closed gantry ahead of the planned launch on 12–16 April: the evidence, contained in satellite photos taken on 4 April, suggested the completion of fuelling activity, with most of the empty fuel and oxidizer tanks removed from buildings supplying the first stage, a new barricade for vehicles on the road to the pad indicating higher security, and the removal of objects near the gantry and a clean-up of the launch pad.

[51] On 10 April North Ryu Kum Chol, deputy director of the Space Development Department of the Korean Committee for Space Technology told reporters at a news conference in Yanggakdo Hotel, Pyongyang, that the launch of the three-stage rocket was on target to take place between 12 and 16 April and that all the assembly and preparations of the satellite launch were done, including fueling of the rocket.

Expectations were that the government would make an official statement on the rocket launch's failure and give closure to the day's highly public embarrassment.