North Korea to send a mission to moon within the next 10 years, senior space officials say

North Korea is shooting for the moon, and plans to plant its flag there in the next ten years.

The country not only hopes to have more advanced satellites in orbit by 2020, but push all the way off from Earth and land on the moon, the Independent reports.

The country says that it isn’t going to be dissuaded by international sanctions that are intended to stop it launching more satellites. And it is going to go from there out to the moon, senior officials at North Korea’s version of Nasa say.

"Even though the U.S. and its allies try to block our space development, our aerospace scientists will conquer space and definitely plant the flag of the DPRK on the moon," said Hyon Kwang Il, director of the scientific research department of North Korea's National Aerospace Development Administration.

Experts say that actually getting up there will be difficult, but not impossible. Only the US has sent people to the moon – and it hasn’t done so for decades – but other nations have arrived there and planted flags by getting their machinery on the surface.

"It would be a significant increase in technology, not one that is beyond them, but you have to debug each bit," Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who maintains an exhaustive blog on international satellites and satellite launches, said.

At the moment the country is looking to concentrate on its five-year plan to launch Earth observation satellites and then its first geostationary communications satellite, according to Hyon. But it will use that expertise to go onto the moon, he said.

"We are planning to develop the Earth observation satellites and to solve communications problems by developing geostationary satellites. All of this work will be the basis for the flight to the moon," Hyon said on July 28, adding that he personally would like to see that happen "within 10 years' time." 

North Korea has been making way with its space programme, which also helps it develop long-range missiles for military use that worry international bodies. It has launched satellites into space – often alongside announcements about its ambitions for ballistic missiles and hydrogen bombs.