North Korea Fourth Musudan Missile Test Reportedly Ends In Launch Pad Explosion

This most recent failure officially makes North Korea O for 4 for their road mobile Musudan Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) test launches:

North Korea apparently failed with an attempted missile launch Tuesday, the latest in a series of setbacks for a ballistic weapons programme that aspires to threaten the US mainland.

South Korea’s defence ministry detected the dawn launch effort, which Japan condemned as an unacceptable and “provocative” act.

The ministry declined to speculate on the missile type, but military sources cited by local media said it was a powerful, medium-range “Musudan” that has already undergone three failed launches this year.

UN resolutions ban North Korea from any use of ballistic missile technology, although it regularly fires short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast.

Tuesday’s effort came with tensions still running high on the divided Korean peninsula following the North’s fourth nuclear test in January and long-range rocket launch a month later.

“We believe that it was a failure,” said Jeon Ha-Gyu, spokesman for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“As to why and how it failed, we are in the process of analysing that,” Jeon told a press briefing.  [AFP]

You can read more at the link, but the AFP article did not state what happened with the launch.  The South Korean media on the other hand is reporting that the missile once again blew up on the launch pad:

Anchor: North Korea has again sought to fire a ballistic missile but the launch ended in failure. Sources have suggested that the missile exploded at a mobile launch pad immediately after the order for the launch was given. As it marked the fourth failed attempt in a row to launch the ballistic missile, the South Korean military is suspecting an engine defect.
Our Kim Bum-soo reports.

Report: North Korea has test-fired another ballistic missile but the launch ended in failure.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS) said that the North Korean military fired a projectile off its east coast near the Wonsan region at around 5:20 a.m on Tuesday.

JCS officials said that the launch was unsuccessful. Other sources suggested the possibility that the missile exploded on its mobile launcher immediately after a fire button was pressed.  [KBS World Radio]

You can read more at the link, but the South Korean military believes their is a structural defect with the Russian BM-25 engine they modified for their Musudans.  Also according to the article it is believed that North Korea has 50 Musdudan missiles in their inventory.  At this rate they are going to blow them all up testing them.

What is even more significant about these failures is that their road mobile KN-08 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) could also be considered to be of low capability since it has never been tested.  The KN-08 is North Korea’s main weapon they use to threaten the United States with nuclear destruction.  If they cannot get their road mobile Musudan IRBM technology to work what are the chances that their road mobile ICBM works to threaten the US with?