Japan on Wednesday condemned Pyongyang's plan to launch a space rocket, calling it a thinly disguised test of a long-distance ballistic missile.

The government ordered Aegis ballistic missile defense warships of the Maritime Self-Defense Force and land-based Patriot PAC-3 rocket units to respond should projections show components falling in Japanese territory.

"This will effectively mean the firing of a ballistic missile. It would be a clear violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and a grave, provocative act against the security of our country," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a Lower House session Wednesday.

"Japan, in cooperation with the United States and South Korea, will strongly urge North Korea to refrain from (conducting) the launch," Abe said.

On Tuesday night, North Korea notified the International Maritime Organization that it plans to send a "satellite" into orbit between Feb. 8 and 25. It said the launch will take place on one of those days between 7:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Japan time.

Pyongyang conducted a fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6. The planned launch is widely seen as both a test and a demonstration of its advances in rocketry.

Feb. 16 is the birthday of late leader Kim Jong Il, the father of current leader Kim Jong Un. Observers believe the launch window has been set around the day for domestic purposes — to bolster the nation's morale.

During a daily news conference, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga pointed out that the projectile, expected to be launched from a site in western North Korea, would fly over part of the Sakishima island chain of Okinawa Prefecture, which includes the islands of Ishigaki and Miyako.

Japan lodged a formal protest with the North's embassy in Beijing at 7:55 a.m. on Wednesday, Suga said.

"U.N. Security Council resolutions have repeatedly banned any launch by North Korea that uses ballistic missile technologies," Suga said.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani ordered the Self-Defense Forces to destroy any parts of the rocket should they threaten to fall within Japanese territory.

Japan has already deployed Aegis destroyers equipped with the SM-3 missile system at sea and Patriot PAC-3 air-defense units of the Ground Self-Defense Forces on land. Both systems are designed to intercept ballistic missiles.

Their primary mission is seen as monitoring the launch, but the deployment also appears to be a gesture underlining Japan's determination to defend its territory.

Pyongyang's declared plan would involve three parts of the rocket falling west of the Korean Peninsula, in the East China Sea southwest of the peninsula and in the Pacific Ocean east of the Philippines, respectively.