Editor’s note: The following article is an opinion piece by Tay Jeong, a visiting scholar at Kangwon Institute for Unification Studies. Views expressed in opinion articles are exclusively the author’s own and do not represent those of NK News.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) recently announced that the military had recovered debris from the spy satellite that North Korea failed to put in orbit in May, after previously salvaging multiple components of the space launch vehicle.

Terminating the monthlong search for the wreckage in the Yellow Sea, JCS assessed that the satellite “has absolutely no military effectiveness as