North Korea’s attempt to put its first spy satellite into orbit failed when the multi-stage rocket carrying it crashed into the sea – a major setback for the hermit kingdom’s missile program at a time it seeks to undermine the influence of the U.S. and its allies in the region.

The rocket launch, which Pyongyang announced in advance, prompted air-raid sirens and alerts in Japan and South Korea late Tuesday. It involved a rocket North Korea calls a “Chollima-1,” which failed in its second stage and crashed into the Yellow Sea. In an unusually swift acknowledgement of the failure, North Korea’s space agency, the National Aerospace Development Administration said the rocket lost thrust due to a malfunctioning motor following a normal takeoff.The space agency announced it would “thoroughly investigate the serious defects revealed in the satellite launch, taking urgent scientific and technical measures to overcome them and conduct the second launch as soon as possible through various part tests,” North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency wrote in a post.The move comes at a contentious time in the region, as South Korea and Japan – historically arch rivals – conduct large-scale naval exercises together this week. The drills represent one of the most visible signs yet of the Japanese military’s steady shift in recent years away from its post-World War II identity as strictly a defense force – a transition that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was expected to tout during a visit to the Asian economic powerhouse beginning Wednesday, ahead of a wider regional tour.Analysts are expressing concern about the tempo with which the government of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is now prioritizing missile and nuclear weapons developmentand whether the U.S. is keeping up with the technologies required to deter it.Following a lull in missile and nuclear tests during the first years of the Trump administration, Pyongyang now is testing new missiles at “a record-breaking rate, thereby improving the delivery systems for its illicit nuclear weapons,” Rebeccah Heinrichs, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank, wrote in an analysis published on Monday arguing for new U.S. investments in its own nuclear weapons programs.

The White House immediately blasted the latest launch by North Korea, known officially as the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, or DPRK, saying it was clearly a test of ballistic missile technology capable of reaching the continental U.S. and calling it “a brazen violation” of U.N. resolutions restricting Pyongyang’s missile programs.Its launch “raises tensions, and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region and beyond,” according to a statement.