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North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported on April 3, 2024, that leader Kim Jong-un had given on-site guidance for the test launch of the Hwasongpho-16B, an intermediate-range solid-fuel ballistic missile tipped with a hypersonic gliding warhead, on April 2. (KCNA/Yonhap)

North Korea announced Wednesday that it had successfully test-launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile. The test of the new hypersonic missile, which was said to have used solid fuel, took place on Tuesday morning.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was quoted by the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Wednesday as saying that the North had completed a project “for putting all the tactical, operational and strategic missiles with various ranges on [a] solid-fueled, warhead-controlled and nuclear warhead-carrying basis.”

However, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded that North Korea’s claims about this missile’s flight range and course changes are “exaggerated,” and the missile is “far from being battle ready.”

The Rodong Sinmun reported that Kim had “guided the first test-fire of Hwasongpho-16B, a new-type intermediate-range solid-fueled ballistic missile loaded with [a] newly developed hypersonic gliding warhead, on the spot on April 2.”

The newspaper said that after separating from the missile, the hypersonic warhead “reached its first peak at the height of 101.1 kilometers and the second [at] 72.3 kilometers while making a 1,000-km-long flight as scheduled to accurately hit the waters of the East Sea of Korea.”

According to the newspaper, the test was conducted to verify “the characteristics of gliding-skip flight and cross-range maneuvering capability of the hypersonic glide vehicle (warhead) while confining its range to [less than] 1,000 kilometers, in consideration of safety, and forcibly controlling the speed and altitude.”

If the report is correct, North Korea conducted its first test launch of the Hwasongpho-16B in a manner that deliberately limited its speed, altitude and range.

A hypersonic missile can glide for more than 100 km at five times the speed of sound (over 6,120 km per hour), and once the warhead separates from the rocket, it falls in an irregular trajectory that is hard to track or intercept. The intermediate-range missile mentioned by North Korea would have a range of 3,000 to 5,500 km, which would put the numerous US military bases on the US-controlled island of Guam and the Japanese island of Okinawa within striking distance.

Contrary to the Rodong Sinmun’s claim that the missile flew for 1,000 km, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it had actually only flown for 600 km, in line with the previous day’s report, and that the missile had not changed course during second-stage ignition.

“Thus we came to successfully implement the Party Central Committee’s three principles of building [a] missile armed force for rapidly, accurately and powerfully striking any target [on] the enemy side worldwide by perfecting the project for putting all the tactical, operational and strategic missiles with various ranges on [a] solid-fueled, warhead-controlled and nuclear warhead-carrying basis,” Kim was quoted as saying.

But the Joint Chiefs believe that while North Korea may have achieved progress in several technical areas, it will need a substantial amount of time to develop a functional hypersonic missile, which requires advanced technology that even advanced economies are still seeking to develop.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer; Kwon Hyuk-chul, staff reporter

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