The North Korean leader’s sister Kim Yo Jong has defended her nation’s efforts to launch a military spy satellite, denouncing the U.S. on Thursday for criticizing the DPRK’s space program but not those of other countries.

The statement, published by the external-facing Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), implicitly acknowledges the failure of Wednesday’s launch and follows a short message on the incident by North Korea’s space agency a day earlier.

“It is certain that the DPRK’s military reconnaissance satellite will be correctly put on space orbit in the near future and start its mission,” Kim Yo Jong said in