Tag: ICBM

Here is the latest on what North Korea’s now very delayed Christmas gift could be:

North Korea may be prepared to test-fire an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to threaten the U.S. mainland, the U.S. northern commander has said, citing rocket engine tests Pyongyang conducted in December. 

Gen. Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy, commander of the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, made the remark in a statement submitted for a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s earlier warning of a “new strategic weapon” and a “shocking actual action.”

“While Kim did not specify what this new weapon would be, recent engine testing suggests North Korea may be prepared to flight-test an even more capable ICBM design that could enhance Kim’s ability to threaten our homeland during a crisis or conflict,” O’Shaughnessy said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I don’t know why anyone in the media is surprised by this, the Kim regime never promised to stop weapons development, why would they?:

North Korea never halted efforts to build powerful new weapons, experts say

But the recent surge in activity also appears to confirm something that U.S. intelligence agencies have long suspected: Despite a self-imposed moratorium on testing its most advanced missiles during the past two years, North Korea never halted its efforts to build powerful, new weapons. Indeed, Kim’s scientists appear to have used the lull to improve and expand the country’s arsenal quietly, U.S. and East Asian officials say.

U.S. analysts say the two tests at Sohae appear to reflect months of continued work on North Korea’s arsenal of potent liquid-fueled missiles, which already includes two ICBMs, the Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15, capable of striking the U.S.. But the country’s scientists have demonstrated progress on other kinds of missiles as well. In the months since the failed U.S.-North Korean summit in Vietnam, Pyongyang has tested five new short- and medium-range missiles, all of which use solid propellants. Solid-fueled missiles are more mobile and easier to hide compared with similar rockets that use liquid fuel.

Washington Post

You can read more at the link.

It appears the North Koreans are being very open to make sure satellites capture what they are doing to drive media coverage prior to a provocation:

South Korea has been working closely with the United States to analyze a “very important test” that North Korea claimed to have conducted at its satellite launching site over the weekend, the defense ministry said Monday.

The communist country said Sunday that it carried out the test successfully at its Sohae Satellite Launching Ground, referring to its Dongchang-ri site in North Pyongyan Province, the previous day.

Pyongyang did not elaborate on what it tested but noted that results “will have an important effect on changing the strategic position of the DPRK once again in the near future.” The DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this is apparently a new ICBM engine being tested. I have long speculated that the Kim regime could test an ICBM and then call it a “space launch”. They can claim they have the right to the peaceful use of space and never promised to suspend their space program. Plus this will give the Russians and the Chinese the ability to diplomatically cover for them if the U.S. tries to increase sanctions through the United Nations.

Testing an ICBM I think will only happen after Kim Jong-un’s January 1st deadline to have a deal in place to drop sanctions. It makes no sense for him to do the test before then. Plus I only think he goes through with an ICBM test if he is confident that the Trump administration will not respond militarily:

Frequent movements of trucks have been recently detected at a rocket launch site in North Korea, a sign that Pyongyang may be preparing another long-range missile test. 

“North Korea appeared to have renovated its missile-related facilities in Dongchang-ri [in Cholsan County of North Pyongan Province] earlier in the year,” a high-ranking official in the South Korean government told the JoongAng Ilbo on Friday. “And recently, we detected an increase in the movement of vehicles in the area.”

At least four vehicles including buses and trucks were spotted in a parking lot near a facility that tests engine combustion in a satellite image of the site on Nov. 1 provided by Google Earth.

“There is a facility used for testing engine combustion in the area, and we detected small buses and trucks coming and going there,” the official said. “The North may not be ready to test a missile immediately, but we see these as signs that it is getting ready for one.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

If the North Koreans conduct a nuclear or ICBM test, I think that would officially end diplomatic efforts:

The United States looks set to break a promise not to hold military exercises with South Korea, putting talks aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons at risk, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

The United States’ pattern of “unilaterally reneging on its commitments” is leading Pyongyang to reconsider its own commitments to discontinue tests of nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the ministry said in a pair of statements released through state news agency KCNA.The United States looks set to break a promise not to hold military exercises with South Korea, putting talks aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons at risk, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

Reuters

You can read more at the link.

Here is some strategic messaging to the Kim regime that the US does have the ability to shoot down North Korean ICBMs with its GMD system:

Salvos by multiple ground interceptors shot down an intercontinental ballistic missile during a test Monday, a “milestone” first-time achievement, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said.
Two ground-based interceptors were used in the test, MDA said in a statement Monday. The first was used to destroy the ICBM reentry vehicle.
The second interceptor “then looked at the resulting debris and remaining objects, and, not finding any other reentry vehicles, selected the next ‘most lethal object’ it could identify, and struck that, precisely as it was designed to do,” the statement said.

The target ICBM was launched from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, more than 4,000 miles from the two interceptors launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
Space-, ground- and sea-based sensors provided real-time target acquisition and tracking data to a command-and-control center during the test, the statement said. The interceptors were then launched beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, where they destroyed the target.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Remember when people were making a big deal about the concession from North Korea of disassembling a rocket test stand? At the time I said this was largely meaningless because they did not need the test stand and was something that could be easily reconstructed when needed again. Sure enough he we go again:

Satellite imagery suggests that North Korea may be taking steps to reactivate a partially decommissioned long-range rocket test site on the country’s west coast.
Experts say they see evidence that workers are rebuilding at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station. In a matter of days, a rocket-engine test stand and a large transfer structure have been reassembled, according to Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., a senior fellow for imagery analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The structures were taken down over the course of last summer, Bermudez says, and reassembled in a matter of days.

NPR via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but the rebuilding of the test stand is the least provocative response that Kim Jong-un can take after President Trump walked away from the Hanoi Summit because Kim would not denuclearize.

I expect that in the future if the Kim regime feels they are not getting any progress on lifting sanctions that they will begin a launch cycle at Sohae and claim it is for a friendly space launch. This will increase tensions while give them plausible deniability of continuing ICBM development.

Who knows how accurate this comment is, but it is of course making the rounds as a headline:

Inevitably, the book includes disturbing new detail about Trump’s subservience to Russian President Vladimir Putin. During an Oval Office briefing in July 2017, Trump refused to believe U.S. intelligence reports that North Korea had test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile — a test that Kim Jong Un had called a Fourth of July “gift” to “the arrogant Americans.”
Trump dismissed the missile launch as a “hoax,” McCabe writes. “He thought that North Korea did not have the capability to launch such missiles. He said he knew this because Vladimir Putin had told him so.”

Washington Post

You can read more at the link.

The timing of this space launch makes me wonder if the Moon administration is trying to give the Kim regime in North Korea a rationale to protest the sanctions on their own rocket launches:

South Korea plans to conduct the first test flight of its locally developed booster engine at the end of next month, the ICT ministry said Sunday, as part of a long-term effort to produce the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-2 (KSLV-2), a three-stage rocket.

The single-stage rocket, with a 75-ton thrust engine, developed by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) is set to be launched between Oct. 25 and Oct. 31 from the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, the Ministry of Science and ICT said.

It said the launch date has been set after examining all variables and that related countries and agencies, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization and International Maritime Organization, will be notified in advance

“Barring any unforeseen developments, the launch should take place on the primary date of Oct. 25,” the ministry said.

The rocket will fly for about 10 minutes, during which the performance of the new engine, control system and other parts will be monitored, the ministry said. It is expected to attain a sub-orbital altitude of over 100 kilometers some 160 seconds after launch and reach its apogee 300 seconds into the flight, before hitting international waters between South Korea’s Jeju Island and Japan’s Okinawa Island.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but after this launch the Kim regime can argue that they should be allowed to conduct peaceful space launches just like the ROK.  The Chinese and Russians of course would support them, the Moon administration may even openly support them.  So called peaceful space launches would give the North Koreans a way to get around sanctions to continue to perfect components of their ICBM technology.

Keep in mind that the destruction of a missile engine test site is something easily reversible by North Korea and not a true example of something that proves they are committed to eliminating their ICBM program:

If Pyongyang destroys a “major missile engine testing site,” as U.S. President Donald Trump said it would on Tuesday after his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the move could indicate the young leader’s willingness to denuclearize.But as with the dismantlement of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site last month, just how far the regime will go in closing down the area – and whether it will have any effect on its nuclear capabilities – remains unknown.

Trump told international reporters in Singapore on Tuesday after signing a joint statement with Kim that the North Korean leader told him he was going to destroy a major missile engine testing site.

The location of the site was not given, and Trump did not go into the details of the test site’s destruction.

The agreement wasn’t included in their statement, said Trump, because he and Kim “agreed to that” after the document was signed.

“That’s a big thing, for the missiles that they were testing, the site is going to be destroyed very soon,” Trump said. “I said, ‘Do me a favor. You’ve got this missile engine testing site. We know where it is because of the heat.’” When Trump asked Kim whether he could close the site, the North Korean leader reportedly said he would.

“I think he’ll do it. I really believe that,” Trump said. “They have a very powerful engine testing site that, again, we’re able to see because of the heat that it emits.”

He added, “Honestly, I think he’s going to do these things. I may be wrong. I mean, I may stand before you in six months and say, ‘Hey, I was wrong.’ I don’t know that I’ll ever admit that but I’ll find some kind of an excuse.”

North Korean state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) made no mention of the engine test site on Wednesday in its coverage of the summit, but said that Kim said his country would take “additional good-will measures” if Washington takes “genuine measures” to build trust in order to improve the North-U.S. relationship.

Both leaders shared thoughts on the process of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula in a “step-by-step” manner, according to the KCNA.

South Korean analysts believe Trump was referring to the engine testing site in Cholsan County, North Pyongan Province, along the west coast of the country. In the past, North Korea test-fired several ballistic missiles into the East Sea from the site.

North Korean media reported last year that a successful engine test was carried out at the site on March 18. Kim was so pleased, he was pictured giving a piggyback ride to an engineer.

The Cholsan test site is believed to be where North Korea developed its engine for the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile, which can target the U.S. mainland.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

What is interesting about this is that before the summit North Korea was reported to already have destroyed an engine test stand used for their ICBM development back on May 19th.  I am not sure if this is the same test stand that President Trump is referring to.  However, I doubt the Kim regime would just destroy this test stand without some prior discussions with the US about this.  You can view satellite pictures of the test stand over at 38 North.