April 12 is International Day of Human Space Flight.

On April 12 1961, Yuri Gagarin, an astronaut of the former Soviet Union, succeeded in the first manned space flight in the world as he turned around the Earth for an hour and 48 minutes aboard spacecraft Vostok and returned home safely.

The successful manned space flight marked a historic event that opened up a new era of conquering outer space humankind had long dreamed of.

The 65th Session of the UN General Assembly held on April 7 2011 adopted a resolution on commemorating April 12 as International Day of Human Space Flight every year to mark the 50th anniversary of the space flight by man.

It reflects the unanimous desire of the international community who hopes that space science and technology would make an important contribution to achieving the stable development and promoting the well-being of all countries and peoples.

Over the past sixty and more years since the first human adventure into the vast outer space, space science and technology have developed rapidly.

Many countries sent satellites into space for various purposes and enormous successes have been attained in different fields such as the development of the satellite carrying technology and new-type satellites, manned space flight and sounding in outer space.

Developing countries have taken an active part in the activities to conquer outer space. The fact shows that gone are the days when space exploration was confined to a few developed countries in the past and a new era of space development, an age of multipolarization, has begun.

Outer space is not the exclusive property of a certain country, but belongs to the whole of mankind.

The basic principles of the international law on space, including the Outer Space Treaty, or the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space including the Moon and other Celestial Bodies, clarify that outer space is a common wealth of mankind and all sovereign states have the legitimate right to develop and use space.

A space programme also goes full steam ahead in the DPRK in conformity with the spirit of the Outer Space Treaty which defines the worldwide space exploration and the use of outer space as the legitimate right of sovereign states.

Founded on April 1 2013, the National Aerospace Technology Administration has powerfully led the activities of the country to conquer outer space over the past 10 and more years.

In the period, projects were positively undertaken to introduce the application technologies into defence upbuilding, economic construction and improvement of the people's standard of living. In that course, satellites became multi-functional and high-performance and many technical problems concerning the satellite control and operation were solved in Korean way.

As part of the efforts to attain the immediate and long-term objectives of the policy on conquering outer space, the reconnaissance satellite “Malligyong(telescope in English)-1” was successfully launched, marking great progress in bolstering up the national defence capability.

A series of successes were achieved in the research into core space science and technology thanks to the extraordinary creative spirit and practical ability of scientists and technicians.

Today the development of space industry is of great significance in building a powerful socialist country and, therefore, the necessity for space development and its use is being further highlighted as the days go by.

For the accelerated development of the space sector, the DPRK government aims to carry out the advanced and valuable space development projects before others and steadily increase the successes from the viewpoint of the strategic interests of the state.