SEOUL (AP) – North Korea successfully tested a solid-fuel engine for its new type intermediate-range hypersonic missile, state media reported yesterday, claiming a progress in efforts to develop a more powerful, agile missile designed to strike faraway United States (US) targets in the region.
A hypersonic missile is among an array of high-tech weapons systems that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un publicly vowed to introduce in 2021 to cope with what he called deepening US hostility. Outside experts say Kim wants a modernised weapons arsenal to wrest US concessions like sanctions relief when diplomacy resumes.
On Tuesday, Kim guided the ground jet test of the multi-stage solid fuel engine for the hypersonic missile at the North’s northwestern rocket launch facility, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
It cited Kim as saying the strategic value of the new missile with an intermediate-range is as important as intercontinental ballistic missiles targeting the US mainland and that “enemies know better about it”. It said that a timetable for completing the development of the new weapons system was “set through the great success in the important test”.
Intermediate-range missiles possessed or pursued by North Korea are the weapons systems primarily aimed at attacking the US Pacific territory of Guam, home to US military bases. Those missiles can also reach Alaska, and with a range adjustment they can be used to strike closer targets like US military installations in Japan’s Okinawa island, experts say.
In recent years, North Korea has been pushing to develop more weapons with built-in solid propellants, which make launches harder to detect than liquid-propellant missiles that must be fuelled before liftoffs and cannot last long. The North’s pursuit of hypersonic weapons is also meant to defeat US and South Korean missile defence systems, but it’s unclear the North’s hypersonic vehicles proved their desired speed and manoeuvrability during tests in recent years, analysts say.
In January, North Korea said it flight tested a new solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile tipped with a hypersonic, manoeuvrable warhead, in a likely reference to the missile mentioned yesterday KCNA dispatch.
