A South Korean woman watches a TV news report showing a computer generated image of North Korea's long-range rocket at Seoul train station in Seoul in 2012. Photo: AP

Seoul:  North Korea has said it is preparing to put a new satellite into orbit, using a rocket that is widely seen as an intercontinental ballistic missile in the making.

"The world will clearly see a series of satellites of military-first Korea soaring into the sky," the official news agency quoted the head of the country's National Aerospace Development Administration as saying.

A rocket lifts off from its launch pad in Musudan-ri, North Korea in 2009. Photo: AP

Officials and analysts in the region have speculated that the North will launch a long-range rocket with a satellite on board around October 10, the 70th anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party. The country's leader, Kim Jong Un, has been seeking to build his prestige with advances in rocketry and missiles, they say.

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North Korea has said its space program is peaceful, and the aerospace official quoted by the state news agency, Korean Central News Agency, said the satellite would gather data for weather forecasting. But after the country put a small satellite into orbit in December 2012, the United States and its allies worried that in the process, the North was learning how to build long-range ballistic missiles that could strike targets as far as the West Coast of the US.

Though it is known to have a few nuclear weapons, North Korea has never tested a missile that could deliver one beyond its home region. Some analysts have doubted whether the North has the ability to build a warhead that could survive re-entry from space or one small enough to mount on a long-range missile.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves from a balcony at the end of a mass military parade in Pyongyang in 2012. Photo: AP

US and South Korean intelligence officials monitor the North's main launch site at Tongchang-ri in north-western North Korea for signs of activity. The North has worked on the site for years to prepare it for rockets bigger than the three-stage Unha-3 booster that was used in 2012.

The South Korean defense minister, Han Min-koo, told Parliament last week that there were no signs that a launch at Tongchang-ri was imminent. But the South's foreign minister, Yun Byung-se, said South Korea did not rule out the possibility of one to celebrate the party's anniversary.

The North tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006, and the UN Security Council has adopted a series of resolutions and sanctions against it since then, including a ban on rocket launches using ballistic missile technology. After the 2012 satellite launch, the Security Council added sanctions, prompting the North to threaten to conduct another nuclear test, a threat it carried out in February 2013, drawing yet another round of sanctions.

Even so, Mr Kim has called for his country to develop and launch "a variety of more working satellites" using "carrier rockets of bigger capacity".

New York Times