Failed North Korean Missile May Have Been Test of Solid Fuel Design

I would say probably the most significant thing about this failed launch is that the North Koreans do not believe President Trump will bomb them.  If they did, they would not have blatantly against UN resolutions have launched this missile right after President Trump put them on notice:

North Korea on Sunday attempted to launch an unidentified ballistic missile from its east coast, but it exploded right after lift-off, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

Pyongyang fired off the missile from a land-based launch facility in Sinpo, South Hamgyong Province, at around 6:20 a.m., the JCS said, noting that it needed further analysis to determine the exact type of the missile and other details.

The botched missile launch came before U.S. Vice President Mike Pence arrives in Seoul in the afternoon to highlight the robust alliance against the wayward regime’s escalating saber-rattling.

“The North attempted to launch a missile, but we presume that the launch ended in failure,” a JCS official said, declining to be named.

On April 5, Pyongyang fired off what was thought to be a KN-15 medium-range ballistic missile from the Sinpo area. It flew just 60 kilometers before falling into the East Sea.

Seoul officials said the missile launched Sunday could be the same type as the one fired earlier this month.

Some experts here say the failed launch might indicate the North has difficulty in developing solid-fuel engines for a new missile or the Scud-ER missile. Others say the launch could be part of its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) development program.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link, but just because the missile failed does not mean the test was a total failure.  There may be important lessons learned from the failed test if they were able to collect the data to improve the design for future tests.  If they perfect their solid fuel missile design this would be a game changer for them since they could more quickly deploy and fire these missiles before US intelligence collection assets could detect them compared to their current missiles that require fueling and more time to prepare them for launch.