South Korea ? North Korea’s state media claimed today that a rocket launch seen overseas largely as a technical failure will propel the country to greatness, while moves at the United Nations to punish remained mired in a lack of consensus.

North Korea launched Sunday what it claims was a satellite that successfully entered orbit around Earth, defying international warnings that the move would violate U.N. resolutions and invite further censure.

The United States and South Korea, which said the North was using the satellite claim to hide a ballistic missile test, say it failed to send the payload into orbit.

The communist country’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper, however, said the event heralded victory for its plan to become a powerful nation by 2012, the 100th anniversary of the birth of national founder Kim Il Sung.

The successful launch is “a historic event that sounded the cannon’s roar of victory in building a ‘great prosperous powerful nation,”‘ the newspaper said in a lengthy editorial carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

“We should rush for the ultimate victory,” the paper quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the son of Kim Il Sung, as saying.