On 12 December 2012 North Korea's Unha-3 launcher places Kwangmyongsong-3-2 into orbit — Pyongyang's first verifiable orbital insertion. The launch is condemned in Tokyo, Seoul, Washington and Beijing simultaneously, an unusual unanimity that is itself a measure of how seriously the technical achievement is taken.
The UN Security Council, in Resolution 2087 (January 2013), expands sanctions to cover almost any space-relevant import to Pyongyang and triggers a fresh wave of secondary sanctions on intermediaries in third countries. The international architecture for restricting a sanctioned state's civilian space programme is, by this point, mature.