North Korea says it tested new hypersonic missile
- The ‘hypersonic gliding warhead’ detached from its rocket booster ‘precisely hit’ a target 700km away, state media reported
- The Wednesday launch, the first in 2022, comes as the country pursues new military capabilities amid stalled denuclearisation talks
The launch on Wednesday was the first by North Korea since October and was detected by several militaries in the region, drawing criticism from governments in the United States, South Korea, and Japan.
“The successive successes in the test launches in the hypersonic missile sector have strategic significance in that they hasten a task for modernising strategic armed force of the state,” the KCNA report said.
In Wednesday’s test, the “hypersonic gliding warhead” detached from its rocket booster and manoeuvred 120km (75 miles) laterally before it “precisely hit” a target 700km (430 miles) away, KCNA reported.
While ballistic missiles are typically “hypersonic” – travelling in excess of five times the speed of sound – North Korea is referring to the use of high-speed gliders to carry warheads past missile defences.
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The test also confirmed components such as flight control and its ability to operate in the winter, KCNA added.
The missile showed its ability to combine “multi-step glide jump flight and strong lateral manoeuvring”, KCNA said.
While it has not tested nuclear bombs or long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) since 2017, in recent years North Korea has developed and launched a range of more manoeuvrable missiles and warheads likely aimed at being able to overcome missile defences like those wielded by South Korea and the United States, analysts have said.
“My impression is that the North Koreans have identified hypersonic gliders as a potentially useful qualitative means to cope with missile defence,” said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Hypersonic weapons are considered the next generation of arms that aim to rob adversaries of reaction time and traditional defeat mechanisms.
Photos of the missile used in Wednesday’s test show what analysts said is a liquid-fuelled ballistic missile with a conical-shaped Manoeuvrable Reentry Vehicle (MaRV) blasting off from a wheeled launch vehicle in a cloud of flame and smoke.
It is a different version than the weapon tested last year, and was first unveiled at a defence exhibition in Pyongyang in October, Panda said.
“They likely set up at least two separate development programmes,” he added. “One of these was the Hwasong-8, which was tested in September. This missile, which shares a few features in common with the Hwasong-8, is another.”
In a call with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned the missile launch and discussed cooperation to achieve complete denuclearisation and lasting peace on the Korean peninsula, the State Department said in a statement.
China hopes all parties could work together to advance a political settlement on the peninsula issue, foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in a regular press conference on Thursday.
Shin Jong-woo, a defence analyst at the Korea Defence Forum, said the test also had political motivations.
“The North wants to bolster the regime’s legitimacy and rally its people suffering from economic difficulties and food shortages amid the continuing border closure due to the pandemic,” he said.
“It also wants to gain an upper hand in future talks with Seoul and the US after the South’s presidential election in March.”
Additional reporting by Park Chan-kyong
