North Korea Rocket Launch Control Room Footage Released (VIDEO)

Hours after it successfully launched a long-rage rocket into space, North Korea has released raw footage of technicians tracking the rocket's orbit from the North Korean mission control center outside the capital Pyongyang.

Defying international warnings and purporting to carry a weather satellite into orbit, the rocket launch is seen as a considerable boost for the isolated country's young leader Kim Jong-un, who took office after his father's death in December 2011.

According to Reuters, the international community is concerned that the launch brings North Korea closer to the capability of launching nuclear warheads on missiles. "But this would still require fitting a weapon to the missile and ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy. The North Koreans probably do not yet have a nuclear weapon small enough for a missile to carry,"Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii, told the news service.

Watch footage of the control room in the video above.