North Korea’s Missile Test, a 9-Minute Hop, Leaves Analysts Puzzled
When North Korea successfully launched its Pukguksong-2, Kim Jong-un boasted
that his country’s "rocket industry has radically turned into high thrust solid fuel-powered engine from liquid fuel rocket engine." That comment left many South Korean officials wondering whether the North was trying to modify its existing liquid-fuel missiles, including Scud-ERs, into versions with solid fuel.
South Korean officials said that whether they were botched or not, the tests of the Musudan
and Pukguksong missiles gave North Korea important insights for its efforts to build an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, that could strike the United States.
After studying the Pukguksong-2 test in February, the United States Strategic Command called the missile "a medium- or intermediate-range ballistic missile."
But North Korea used an unfamiliar term, a "medium long-range ballistic missile," indicating that its potential range would be longer.
By CHOE SANG-HUNAPRIL 7, 2017
SEOUL, South Korea — If North Korea wanted to rattle the United States
and China with its missile test this week, the launch itself was more fizzle than bang.
The United States Pacific Command said that the missile fired on Wednesday was a Pukguksong-2 but
that it had been deployed from "a land-based facility" near Sinpo, a port on the east coast of North Korea, rather than a mobile launch vehicle inland.
American and South Korean officials initially said they believed
that the North had launched its Pukguksong-2, a newly developed, nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile that uses solid-fuel technology, which makes it easier for the country to hide its weapons and deploy them on short notice.
