The Democratic People's Republic of Korea said on Sunday it was considering postponing a launch window for a rocket that the country planned to fire between Monday and Dec 20, while analysts said it's unlikely Pyongyang will cancel the launch unless the international community drops sanctions against it.

"We are now in the final stage of preparations for the launch," the official Korean Central News Agency quoted the Korean Committee for Space Technology as saying, but scientists and engineers were "considering seriously the possibility of readjusting the launch period" because some problems have arisen during the preparation.

A US think-tank, the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said preparations for the launch may have been delayed by heavy snow.